Sample records for acoustic combustion instability

Acousticcombustioninstabilities occur when interaction between the combustion process and acoustic modes in a combustor results in periodic oscillations in pressure, velocity, and heat release. If sufficiently large in amplitude, these instabilities can cause operational difficulties or the failure of combustor hardware. In many situations, the dominant instability is the result of the interaction between a low frequency acoustic mode of the combustor and the large scale hydrodynamics. Large eddy simulation (LES), therefore, is a promising tool for the prediction of these instabilities, since both the low frequency acoustic modes and the large scale hydrodynamics are well resolved in LES. Problems with the tractability of such simulations arise, however, due to the difficulty of solving the compressible Navier-Stokes equations efficiently at low Mach number and due to the large number of acoustic periods that are often required for such instabilities to reach limit cycles. An implicit numerical method for the solution of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations has been developed which avoids the acoustic CFL restriction, allowing for significant efficiency gains at low Mach number, while still resolving the low frequency acoustic modes of interest. In the limit of a uniform grid the numerical method causes no artificial damping of acoustic waves. New, non-reflecting boundary conditions have also been developed for use with the characteristic-based approach of Poinsot and Lele (1992). The new boundary conditions are implemented in a manner which allows for significant reduction of the computational domain of an LES by eliminating the need to perform LES in regions where one-dimensional acoustics significantly affect the instability but details of the hydrodynamics do not. These new numerical techniques have been demonstrated in an LES of an experimental combustor. The new techniques are shown to be an efficient means of performing LES of acousticcombustion

Shear-coaxial injector elements are often used in liquid-propellant-rocket thrust chambers, where combustioninstabilities remain a significant problem. A conventional solution to the combustioninstability problem relies on passive control techniques that use empirically-developed hardware such as acoustic baffles and tuned cavities. In addition to adding weight and decreasing engine performance, these devices are designed using trial-and-error methods, which do not provide the capability to predict the overall system stability characteristics in advance. In this thesis, two novel control strategies that are based on propellant fluid dynamics were investigated for mitigating acousticinstability involving shear-coaxial injector elements. The new control strategies would use a set of controlled injectors allowing local adjustment of propellant flow patterns for each operating condition, particularly when instability could become a problem. One strategy relies on reducing the oxidizer-fuel density gradient by blending heavier methane with the main fuel, hydrogen. Another strategy utilizes modifying the equivalence ratio to affect the acoustic impedance through mixing and reaction rate changes. The potential effectiveness of these strategies was assessed by conducting unit-physics experiments. Two different model combustors, one simulating a single-element injector test and the other a double-element injector test, were designed and tested for flame-acoustic interaction. For these experiments, the Reynolds number of the central oxygen jet was kept between 4700 and 5500 making the injector flames sufficiently turbulent. A compression driver, mounted on one side of the combustor wall, provided controlled acoustic excitation to the injector flames, simulating the initial phase of flame-acoustic interaction. Acoustic excitation was applied either as band-limited white noise forcing between 100 Hz and 5000 Hz or as single-frequency, fixed-amplitude forcing at 1150 Hz

Analytical studies have been made of the relative combustion stability of various propellant combinations when used with hardware configurations representative of current design practices and with or without acoustic cavities. Two combustioninstability models, a Priem-type model and a modification of the Northern Research and Engineering (NREC) instability model, were used to predict the variation in engine stability with changes in operating conditions, hardware characteristics or propellant combination, exclusive of acoustic cavity effects. The NREC model was developed for turbojet engines but is applicable to liquid propellant engines. A steady-state combustion model was used to predict the needed input for the instability models. In addition, preliminary development was completed on a new model to predict the influence of an acoustic cavity with specific allowance for the effects the nozzle, steady flow and combustion.

A simplified one-dimensional model of reactive flow is presented which captures features of aeropropulsion systems, including acoustically driven combustioninstabilities. Although the resulting partial differential equations are one dimensional, they qualitatively describe observed phenomena, including, resonant frequencies and the admission of both steady and unsteady behavior. A number of simulations are shown which exhibit both steady and unsteady behavior, including flame migration and thermo acousticinstabilities. Finally, we present examples of unsteady flow resulting from fuel modulation.

The main manifestations of combustioninstabilities are reviewed, and the specific characteristics of instabilities in solid-propellant rocket engines are analyzed, with the Minuteman III third-stage engine and the SRB engine of Titan 34 D considered as examples. The main approaches for predicting combustioninstabilities are discussed, including the linear approach based on the acoustic balance, the nonlinear mode-coupling approach, and the nonlinear approach using numerical calculation. Projected directions for future research are also examined.

High frequency combustioninstability, the most destructive kind, is generally solved on a per engine basis. The instability often is the result of compounding acoustic oscillations, usually from the propellant combustion itself. To counteract the instability the chamber geometry can be changed and/or the method of propellant injection can be altered. This experiment will alter the chamber dimensions slightly; using a cylindrical shape of constant diameter and the length will be varied from six to twelve inches in three-inch increments. The main flowfield will be the products of a high OF hydrogen/oxygen flow. The liquid fuel will be injected into this flowfield using a modulated injector. It will allow for varied droplet size, feed rate, spray pattern, and location for the mixture within the chamber. The response will be deduced from the chamber pressure oscillations.

This research investigation encompasses experimental tests demonstrating the control of a high-frequency combustioninstability by acoustically modulating the propellant flow. A model rocket combustor burned gaseous oxygen and methane using a single-element, pentad-style injector. Flow conditions were established that spontaneously excited a 2430 Hz first longitudinal combustion oscillation at an amplitude up to p'/pc ≈ 6%. An acoustic speaker was placed at the base of the oxidizer supply to modulate the flow and alter the oscillatory behavior of the combustor. Two speaker modulation approaches were investigated: (1) Bands of white noise and (2) Pure sinusoidal tones. The first approach adjusted 500 Hz bands of white noise ranging from 0-500 Hz to 2000-2500 Hz, while the second implemented single-frequency signals with arbitrary phase swept from 500-2500 Hz. The results showed that above a modulation signal amplitude threshold, both approaches suppressed 95+% of the spontaneous combustion oscillation. By increasing the applied signal amplitude, a wider frequency range of instability suppression became present for these two acoustic modulation approaches. Complimentary to these experiments, a linear modal analysis was undertaken to investigate the effects of acoustic modulation at the inlet boundary on the longitudinal instability modes of a dump combustor. The modal analysis employed acoustically consistent matching conditions with a specific impedance boundary condition at the inlet to represent the acoustic modulation. From the modal analysis, a naturally unstable first longitudinal mode was predicted in the absence of acoustic modulation, consistent with the spontaneously excited 2430 Hz instability observed experimentally. Subsequently, a detailed investigation involving variation of the modulation signal from 0-2500 Hz and mean combustor temperature from 1248-1685 K demonstrated the unstable to stable transition of a 2300-2500 Hz first longitudinal mode. The

A theory and computer program for combustioninstability analysis are presented. The basic theoretical foundation resides in the concept of entropy-controlled energy growth or decay. Third order perturbation expansion is performed on the entropy-controlled acoustic energy equation to obtain the first order integrodifferential equation for the energy growth factor in terms of the linear, second, and third order energy growth parameters. These parameters are calculated from Navier-Stokes solutions with time averages performed on as many Navier-Stokes time steps as required to cover at least one peak wave period. Applications are made for a 1-D Navier-Stokes solution for the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) thrust chamber with cross section area variations taken into account. It is shown that instability occurs when the mean pressure is set at 2000 psi with 30 percent disturbances. Instability also arises when the mean pressure is set at 2935 psi with 20 percent disturbances. The system with mean pressures and disturbances more adverse that these cases were shown to be unstable.

NASA Lewis Research Center's Advanced Controls and Dynamics Technology Branch is investigating active control strategies to mitigate or eliminate the combustioninstabilities prevalent in lean-burning, low-emission combustors. These instabilities result from coupling between the heat-release mechanisms of the burning process and the acoustic flow field of the combustor. Control design and implementation require a simulation capability that is both fast and accurate. It must capture the essential physics of the system, yet be as simple as possible. A quasi-one-dimensional, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based simulation has been developed which may meet these requirements. The Euler equations of mass, momentum, and energy have been used, along with a single reactive species transport equation to simulate coupled thermoacoustic oscillations. A very simple numerical integration scheme was chosen to reduce computing time. Robust boundary condition procedures were incorporated to simulate various flow conditions (e.g., valves, open ends, and choked inflow) as well as to accommodate flow reversals that may arise during large flow-field oscillations. The accompanying figure shows a sample simulation result. A combustor with an open inlet, a choked outlet, and a large constriction approximately two thirds of the way down the length is shown. The middle plot shows normalized, time-averaged distributions of the relevant flow quantities, and the bottom plot illustrates the acoustic mode shape of the resulting thermoacoustic oscillation. For this simulation, the limit cycle peak-to-peak pressure fluctuations were 13 percent of the mean. The simulation used 100 numerical cells. The total normalized simulation time was 50 units (approximately 15 oscillations), which took 26 sec on a Sun Ultra2.

radius r0 = U 50,am, and temperature To = 300K , which are injected into an air stream at To, = 1500K and P,,, = 10 atm. In Figures A-2 to A-4, the dynamic ...excite the low frequency modes, the characteristic time I for the liquid droplet heating must correspond to the residence time, or rf/ Tdh 1.0. I A few...Combustion," Progress in Energy and U Combustion Science, Vol. 3, 1977. I 12. Harlow. F. H. and Amsden, A. A.. "A Numerical Fluid Dynamics Calculation

Combustioninstabilities in gas turbine engines are most frequently encountered during the late phases of engine development, at which point they are difficult and expensive to fix. The ability to replicate an engine-traceable combustioninstability in a laboratory-scale experiment offers the opportunity to economically diagnose the problem (to determine the root cause), and to investigate solutions to the problem, such as active control. The development and validation of active combustioninstability control requires that the causal dynamic processes be reproduced in experimental test facilities which can be used as a test bed for control system evaluation. This paper discusses the process through which a laboratory-scale experiment was designed to replicate an instability observed in a developmental engine. The scaling process used physically-based analyses to preserve the relevant geometric, acoustic and thermo-fluid features. The process increases the probability that results achieved in the single-nozzle experiment will be scalable to the engine.

The solution of problems of combustioninstability for more effective communication between the various workers in this field is considered. The extent of combustioninstability problems in liquid propellant rocket engines and recommendations for their solution are discussed. The most significant developments, both theoretical and experimental, are presented, with emphasis on fundamental principles and relationships between alternative approaches.

A theoretical analysis of active control of combustion thermo-acousticinstabilities is developed in this dissertation. The theoretical combustion model is based on the dynamics of a two-phase flow in a liquid-fueled propulsion system. The formulation is based on a generalized wave equation with pressure as the dependent variable, and accommodates all influences of combustion, mean flow, unsteady motions and control inputs. The governing partial differential equations are converted to an equivalent set of ordinary differential equations using Galerkin's method by expressing the unsteady pressure and velocity fields as functions of normal mode shapes of the chamber. This procedure yields a representation of the unsteady flow field as a system of coupled nonlinear oscillators that is used as a basis for controllers design. Major research attention is focused on the control of longitudinal oscillations with both linear and nonlinear processes being considered. Starting with a linear model using point actuators, the optimal locations of actuators and sensors are developed. The approach relies on the quantitative measures of the degree of controllability and component cost. These criterion are arrived at by considering the energies of the system's inputs and outputs. The optimality criteria for sensor and actuator locations provide a balance between the importance of the lower order (controlled) and the higher (residual) order modes. To address the issue of uncertainties in system's parameter, the minimax principles based controller is used. The minimax corresponds to finding the best controller for the worst parameter deviation. In other words, choosing controller parameters to minimize, and parameter deviation to maximize some quadratic performance metric. Using the minimax-based controller, a remarkable improvement in the control system's ability to handle parameter uncertainties is achieved when compared to the robustness of the regular control schemes such as LQR

widely used in premixed combustion for gas turbine engine application [2-5]. You et al. [6] developed an analytical model based on a level-set...Model of Acoustic Response of Turbulent Premixed Flame and Its Application to Gas- Turbine CombustionInstability Analysis," Combustion Science and

In the past, the acousticcombustioninstability was studied independently of the hydrodynamic instability induced by vortex motions. This paper is intended to combine the two different sources of energy everywhere within the spatial domain and determine the effect of one upon the other. This can be achieved by calculating the mean flow velocities and vorticities and their fluctuating parts of velocities and vortices, as well as the fluctuating pressure. The Orr-Sommerfeld equation is utilized to determine the wavenumbers and unsteady stream functions from which vortically coupled acousticinstability growth constants are calculated. This process demonstrates that there are two different frequencies, acoustic and hydrodynamic, various combinations of which contribute to either damping or amplification. It is found that stability boundaries for coupled acoustic and vortical oscillations are somewhat similar to the classical hydrodynamic stability boundaries, but they occur in the form of multiple islands.

The principle of 'antisound' is used to construct a method for the suppression of combustioninstabilities. This active instability control (AIC) method uses external acoustic excitation by a loudspeaker to suppress the oscillations of a flame. The excitation signal is provided by a microphone located upstream of the flame. This signal is filtered, processed, amplified, and sent to the loudspeaker. The AIC method is validated on a laboratory combustor. It allows the suppression of all unstable modes of the burner for any operating ratio. The influence of the microphone and loudspeaker locations on the performance of the AIC system is described. For a given configuration, domains of stability, i.e., domains where the AIC system parameters provide suppression of the oscillation, are investigated. Measurements of the electric input of the loudspeaker show that the energy consumption of the AIC system is almost negligible and suggest that this method could be used for industrial combustor stabilization. Finally, a simple model describing the effects of the AIC system is developed and its results compared to the experiment.

The role of flow coherent structures as drivers of combustioninstabilities in a dump combustor was studied. Results of nonreacting tests in air and water flows as well as combustion experiments in a diffusion flame and dump combustor are discussed to provide insight into the generation process of large-scale structures in the combustor flow and their interaction with the combustion process. It is shown that the flow structures, or vortices, are formed by interaction between the flow instabilities and the chamber acoustic resonance. When these vortices dominate the reacting flow, the combustion is confined to their cores, leading to periodic heat release, which may result in the driving of high amplitude pressure oscillations. These oscillations are typical to the occurrence of combustioninstabilities for certain operating conditions. The basic understanding of the interaction between flow dynamics and the combustion process opens up the possibility for rational control of combustion-induced pressure oscillations. 42 references.

It is well known that the two key elements for achieving low emissions and high performance in a gas turbine combustor are to simultaneously establish (1) a lean combustion zone for maintaining low NO{sub x} emissions and (2) rapid mixing for good ignition and flame stability. However, these requirements, when coupled with the short combustor lengths used to limit the residence time for NO formation typical of advanced gas turbine combustors, can lead to problems regarding unburned hydrocarbons (UHC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, as well as the occurrence of combustioninstabilities. The concurrent development of suitable analytical and numerical models that are validated with experimental studies is important for achieving this objective. A major benefit of the present research will be to provide for the first time an experimentally verified model of emissions and performance of gas turbine combustors. The present study represents a coordinated effort between industry, government and academia to investigate gas turbine combustion dynamics. Specific study areas include development of advanced diagnostics, definition of controlling phenomena, advancement of analytical and numerical modeling capabilities, and assessment of the current status of our ability to apply these tools to practical gas turbine combustors. The present work involves four tasks which address, respectively, (1) the development of a fiber-optic probe for fuel-air ratio measurements, (2) the study of combustioninstability using laser-based diagnostics in a high pressure, high temperature flow reactor, (3) the development of analytical and numerical modeling capabilities for describing combustioninstability which will be validated against experimental data, and (4) the preparation of a literature survey and establishment of a data base on practical experience with combustioninstability.

It is well known that the two key elements for achieving low emissions and high performance in a gas turbine combustor are to simultaneously establish (1) a lean combustion zone for maintaining low NO{sub x} emissions and (2) rapid mixing for good ignition and flame stability. However, these requirements, when coupled with the short combustor lengths used to limit the residence time for NO formation typical of advanced gas turbine combustors, can lead to problems regarding unburned hydrocarbons (UHC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, as well as the occurrence of combustioninstabilities. Clearly, the key to successful gas turbine development is based on understanding the effects of geometry and operating conditions on combustioninstability, emissions (including UHC, CO and NO{sub x}) and performance. The concurrent development of suitable analytical and numerical models that are validated with experimental studies is important for achieving this objective. A major benefit of the present research will be to provide for the first time an experimentally verified model of emissions and performance of gas turbine combustors.

High frequency combustioninstability is viewed as the most challenging task in the development of Liquid Rocket Engines. In this article, results of attempts to capture the self-excited high frequency combustioninstability in a rocket combustor are shown. The presence of combustioninstability was demonstrated using point measurements, along with Fast Fourier Transform analysis and instantaneous flowfield contours. A baseline case demonstrates a similar wall heat flux profile as the associated experimental case. The acoustic oscillation modes and corresponding frequencies predicted by current simulations are almost the same as the results obtained from classic acoustic analysis. Pressure wave moving back and forth across the combustor was also observed. Then this baseline case was compared against different fuel-oxidizer velocity ratios. It predicts a general trend: the smaller velocity ratio produces larger oscillation amplitudes than the larger one. A possible explanation for the trend was given using the computational results.

Combustioninstabilities in gas turbine engines are most frequently encountered during the late phases of engine development, at which point they are difficult and expensive to fix. The ability to replicate an engine-traceable combustioninstability in a laboratory-scale experiment offers the opportunity to economically diagnose the problem more completely (to determine the root cause), and to investigate solutions to the problem, such as active control. The development and validation of active combustioninstability control requires that the casual dynamic processes be reproduced in experimental test facilities which can be used as a test bed for control system evaluation. This paper discusses the process through which a laboratory-scale experiment and be designed to replicate an instability observed in a developmental engine. The scaling process used physically-based analyses to preserve the relevant geometric, acoustic, and thermo-fluid features, ensuring that results achieved in the single-nozzle experiment will be scalable to the engine.

Results are presented of a theoretical analysis of thermoacoustic effects observed during combustion, i.e., turbulent flame noise, amplification of acoustic waves by the combustion front, and acousticinstability of combustion in through-flow chambers. Relations are obtained which describe these phenomena. 8 refs.

Combustioninstabilities can lead to increased development time and cost for aeroengine gas turbines. This problem has been evident in the development of very-low emissions stationary gas turbines, and will likely be encountered in the newer, more aggressive aeroengine designs. In order to minimize development time and cost, it is imperative that potential combustion dynamics issues be resolved using analyses and smaller-scale experimentation. This paper discusses a methodology through which a problem in a full-scale engine was replicated in a single-nozzle laboratory combustor. Specifically, this approach is valid for longitudinal and "bulk" mode combustioninstabilities. An explanation and partial validation of the acoustic analyses that were used to achieve this replication are also included. This approach yields a testbed for the diagnosis of combustion dynamics problems and for their solution through passive and active control techniques.

The Joint Army, Navy, NASA, Air Force (JANNAF) Liquid Rocket CombustionInstability Panel was formed in 1988, drawing its members from industry, academia, and government experts. The panel was charted to address the needs of near-term engine development programs and to make recommendations whose implementation would provide not only sufficient data but also the analysis capabilities to design stable and efficient engines. The panel was also chartered to make long-term recommendations toward developing mechanistic analysis models that would not be limited by design geometry or operating regime. These models would accurately predict stability and thereby minimize the amount of subscale testing for anchoring. The panel has held workshops on acoustic absorbing devices, combustioninstability mechanisms, instability test hardware, and combustioninstability computational methods. At these workshops, research projects that would meet the panel's charter were suggested. The JANNAF Liquid Rocket CombustionInstability Panel's conclusions about the work that needs to be done and recommendations on how to approach it, based on evaluation of the suggested research projects, are presented.

Closed-loop active control methods and their application to combustioninstabilities are discussed. In these methods the instability development is impeded with a feedback control loop: the signal provided by a sensor monitoring the flame or pressure oscillations is processed and sent back to actuators mounted on the combustor or on the feeding system. Different active control systems tested on a non-premixed multiple-flame turbulent combustor are described. These systems can suppress all unstable plane modes of oscillation (i.e. low frequency modes). The active instability control (AIC) also constitutes an original and powerful technique for studies of mechanisms leading to instability or resulting from the instability. Two basic applications of this kind are described. In the first case the flame is initially controlled with AIC, the feedback loop is then switched off and the growth of the instability is analysed through high speed Schlieren cinematography and simultaneous sound pressure and reaction rate measurements. Three phases are identified during th growth of the oscillations: (1) a linear phase where acoustic waves induce a flapping motion of the flame sheets without interaction between sheets, (2) a modulation phase, where flame sheets interact randomly and (3) a nonlinear phase where the flame sheets are broken and a limit cycle is reached. In the second case we investigate different types of flame extinctions associated with combustioninstability. It is shown that pressure oscillations may lead to partial or total extinctions. Extinctions occur in various forms but usually follow a rapid growth of pressure oscillations. The flame is extinguished during the modulation phase observed in the initiation experiments. In these studies devoted to transient instability phenomena, the control system constitutes a unique investigation tool because it is difficult to obtain the same information by other means. Implications for modelling and prediction of

An experimental study of the influence of external periodic perturbations on the instability of the combustion chamber in a pulsating combustion. As an external periodic disturbances were used sound waves emitted by the electrodynamics. The purpose of the study was to determine the possibility of using the method of external periodic perturbation to control the combustioninstability. The study was conducted on a specially created model of the combustion chamber with a swirl burner in the frequency range from 100 to 1400 Hz. The study found that the method of external periodic perturbations may be used to control combustioninstability. Depending on the frequency of the external periodic perturbation is observed as an increase and decrease in the amplitude of the oscillations in the combustion chamber. These effects are due to the mechanisms of synchronous and asynchronous action. External periodic disturbance generated in the path feeding the gaseous fuel, showing the high efficiency of the method of management in terms of energy costs. Power required to initiate periodic disturbances (50 W) is significantly smaller than the thermal capacity of the combustion chamber (100 kW).

The multi-dimensional numerical model has been developed to analyze the nonlinear combustioninstabilities in liquid-fueled engines. The present pressure-based approach can handle the implicit pressure-velocity coupling in a non-iterative way. The additional scalar conservation equations for the chemical species, the energy, and the turbulent transport quantities can be handled by the same predictor-corrector sequences. This method is time-accurate and it can be applicable to the all-speed, transient, multi-phase, and reacting flows. Special emphasis is given to the acoustic/vaporization interaction which may act as the crucial rate-controlling mechanism in the liquid-fueled rocket engines. The subcritical vaporization is modeled to account for the effects of variable thermophysical properties, non-unitary Lewis number in the gas-film, the Stefan flow effect, and the effect of transient liquid heating. The test cases include the one-dimenisonal fast transient non-reacting and reacting flows, and the multi-dimensional combustioninstabilities encountered in the liquid-fueled rocket thrust chamber. The present numerical model successfully demonstrated the capability to simulate the fast transient spray-combusting flows in terms of the limiting-cycle amplitude phenomena, correspondence between combustion and acoustics, and the steep-fronted wave and flame propagation. The investigated parameters include the spray initial conditions, air-fuel mixture ratios, and the engine geometry. Stable and unstable operating conditions are found for the liquid-fueled combustors. Under certain conditions, the limiting cycle behavior of the combusting flowfields is obtained. The numerical results indicate that the spray vaporization processes play an important role in releasing thermal energy and driving the combustioninstability.

This research is motivated by the issue associated with high frequency combustioninstability. Large eddy simulation was performed to investigate spontaneous combustioninstability in an air/LO2/C2H5OH tripropellant air heater. The simulation predicts self-excited transverse oscillations. Overall behavior of combustioninstability including pressure time histories, mode shapes, Rayleigh index and unsteady response of the injector were studied in detail. Special emphasis was given to the flame behavior, droplet trajectories, pressure evolutions, and formation of large-scale vortical structures during combustioninstability in present air heater. Furthermore, in contrast to previous investigations, a new process is identified in the simulation that may feed energy into the acoustic mode and drive combustioninstability.

The Joint Army, Navy, NASA, Air Force (JANNAF) Liquid Rocket CombustionInstability Panel was formed in 1988, drawing its members from industry, academia, and government experts. The panel was chartered to address the needs of near-term engine development programs and to make recommendations whose implementation would provide not only sufficient data but also the analysis capabilities to design stable and efficient engines. The panel was also chartered to make long-term recommendations toward developing mechanistic analysis models that would not be limited by design geometry or operating regime. These models would accurately predict stability and thereby minimize the amount of subscale testing for anchoring. The panel has held workshops on acoustic absorbing devices and combustioninstability computational methods. At these workshops, research projects that would meet the panel's charter were suggested. The panel's conclusions about the work that needs to be done and recommendations on how to approach it, based on evaluation of the suggested research projects, are presented.

This research is concerned with investigation of the mechanisms responsible for the driving of longitudinal instabilities in dump-type ramjet combustors. In particular, the coupling between the core flame which is stabilized at the entrance of the combustor and the longitudinal acoustic field was studied. The time-dependent structure of premixed V-shaped flames was experimentally examined using pressure measurements, space- and time-resolved C-H radical radiation measurements, high-speed shadow cine photography, and laser-Doppler velocimetry. The investigation revealed that the acoustic energy to sustain the instability is mainly supplied by the oscillatory heat release from the flame. Based on this finding, a model was developed that is capable of predicting the acoustic pressure spectrum from measured heat-release rates. Furthermore, it was shown that the periodic heat-release rates largely result from periodic changes in the flame surface area caused by acoustically triggered symmetric vortex shedding in the wake of the flame holders. Lastly, experiments were conducted that used this mechanism to show the suppression of instabilities at the fundamental acoustic mode by staggering multiple flames so that the unsteady heat release fields destructively interfere with one another.

The LOX/Hydrocarbon CombustionInstability Investigation Program was structured to determine if the use of light hydrocarbon combustion fuels with liquid oxygen (LOX) produces combustion performance and stability behavior similar to the LOX/hydrogen propellant combination. In particular methane was investigated to determine if that fuel can be rated for combustioninstability using the same techniques as previously used for LOX/hydrogen. These techniques included fuel temperature ramping and stability bomb tests. The hot fire program probed the combustion behavior of methane from ambient to subambient temperatures. Very interesting results were obtained from this program that have potential importance to future LOX/methane development programs. A very thorough and carefully reasoned documentation of the experimental data obtained is contained. The hot fire test logic and the associated tests are discussed. Subscale performance and stability rating testing was accomplished using 40,000 lb. thrust class hardware. Stability rating tests used both bombs and fuel temperature ramping techniques. The test program was successful in generating data for the evaluation of the methane stability characteristics relative to hydrogen and to anchor stability models. Data correlations, performance analysis, stability analyses, and key stability margin enhancement parameters are discussed.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code developed for use in design analyses of flow instabilities associated with combustion of sprayed liquid propellants in rocket engines. Code also contributes to design of improved commercial sprayed-fuel combustors in furnaces and jet engines. Proves robust, user-friendly software tool with comprehensive analysis capability. Enables characterization of stability or instability of engine in terms of such physically meaningful parameters as initial conditions of spray, spatial distribution of ratio between concentrations of fuel and oxidizer at injector faces, geometry of combustor, and configurations of baffles.

The combustion stability characteristics of a combustor consisting of a single shear element and a cylindrical chamber utilizing LOX and gaseous hydrogen as propellants are presented. The combustor geometry and the resulting longitudinal mode instability are axisymmetric. Hydrogen injection temperature and pyrotechnic pulsing were used to determine stability boundaries. Mixture ratio, fuel annulus gap, and LOX post configuration were varied. Performance and stability data were obtained for chamber pressures of 300 and 1000 psia.

The combustion stability characteristics of a combustor consisting of a single shear element and a cylindrical chamber utilizing LOX and gaseous hydrogen as propellants are presented. The combustor geometry and the resulting longitudinal mode instability are axisymmetric. Hydrogen injection temperature and pyrotechnic pulsing were used to determine stability boundaries. Mixture ratio, fuel annulus gap, and LOX post configuration were varied. Performance and stability data are presented for chamber pressures of 300 and 1000 psia.

Pulsed oscillations in solid rocket motors are investigated with emphasis on nonlinear combustion response. The study employs a wave equation governing the unsteady motions in a two-phase flow, and a solution technique based on spatial- and time-averaging. A wide class of combustion response functions is studied to second-order in fluctuation amplitude to determine if, when, and how triggered instabilities arise. Conditions for triggering are derived from analysis of limit cycles, and regions of triggering are found in parametric space. Based on the behavior of model dynamical systems, introduction of linear cross-coupling and quadratic self-coupling among the acoustic modes appears to be the manner in which the nonlinear combustion response produces triggering to a stable limit cycle. Regions of initial conditions corresponding to stable pulses were found, suggesting that stability depends on initial phase angle and harmonic content, as well as the composite amplitude, of the pulse.

Combustioninstability modeling of Solid Rocket Motors (SRM) remains a topic of active research. Many rockets display violent fluctuations in pressure, velocity, and temperature originating from the complex interactions between the combustion process, acoustics, and steady-state gas dynamics. Recent advances in defining the energy transport of disturbances within steady flow-fields have been applied by combustion stability modelers to improve the analysis framework [1, 2, 3]. Employing this more accurate global energy balance requires a higher fidelity model of the SRM flow-field and acoustic mode shapes. The current industry standard analysis tool utilizes a one dimensional analysis of the time dependent fluid dynamics along with a quasi-three dimensional propellant grain regression model to determine the SRM ballistics. The code then couples with another application that calculates the eigenvalues of the one dimensional homogenous wave equation. The mean flow parameters and acoustic normal modes are coupled to evaluate the stability theory developed and popularized by Culick [4, 5]. The assumption of a linear, non-dissipative wave in a quiescent fluid remains valid while acoustic amplitudes are small and local gas velocities stay below Mach 0.2. The current study employs the COMSOL multiphysics finite element framework to model the steady flow-field parameters and acoustic normal modes of a generic SRM. The study requires one way coupling of the CFD High Mach Number Flow (HMNF) and mathematics module. The HMNF module evaluates the gas flow inside of a SRM using St. Robert's law to model the solid propellant burn rate, no slip boundary conditions, and the hybrid outflow condition. Results from the HMNF model are verified by comparing the pertinent ballistics parameters with the industry standard code outputs (i.e. pressure drop, thrust, ect.). These results are then used by the coefficient form of the mathematics module to determine the complex eigenvalues of the

Elliposidal acoustic mirror used to measure sound emitted at discrete points in burning turbulent jets. Mirror deemphasizes sources close to target source and excludes sources far from target. At acoustic frequency of 20 kHz, mirror resolves sound from region 1.25 cm wide. Currently used by NASA for research on jet flames. Produces clearly identifiable and measurable variation of acoustic spectral intensities along length of flame. Utilized in variety of monitoring or control systems involving flames or other reacting flows.

Low-emission combustor designs are prone to combustor instabilities. Because active control of these instabilities may allow future combustors to meet both stringent emissions and performance requirements, an experimental combustor rig was developed for investigating methods of actively suppressing combustioninstabilities. The experimental rig has features similar to a real engine combustor and exhibits instabilities representative of those in aircraft gas turbine engines. Experimental testing in the spring of 1999 demonstrated that the rig can be tuned to closely represent an instability observed in engine tests. Future plans are to develop and demonstrate combustioninstability control using this experimental combustor rig. The NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is leading the CombustionInstability Control program to investigate methods for actively suppressing combustioninstabilities. Under this program, a single-nozzle, liquid-fueled research combustor rig was designed, fabricated, and tested. The rig has many of the complexities of a real engine combustor, including an actual fuel nozzle and swirler, dilution cooling, and an effusion-cooled liner. Prior to designing the experimental rig, a survey of aircraft engine combustioninstability experience identified an instability observed in a prototype engine as a suitable candidate for replication. The frequency of the instability was 525 Hz, with an amplitude of approximately 1.5-psi peak-to-peak at a burner pressure of 200 psia. The single-nozzle experimental combustor rig was designed to preserve subcomponent lengths, cross sectional area distribution, flow distribution, pressure-drop distribution, temperature distribution, and other factors previously found to be determinants of burner acoustic frequencies, mode shapes, gain, and damping. Analytical models were used to predict the acoustic resonances of both the engine combustor and proposed experiment. The analysis confirmed that the test rig

Chapter 3. DATES COVERED (From - To) January 2013-July 2013 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Engine -Level Simulation of Liquid Rocket CombustionInstabilities...ABSTRACT A numerical investigation into combustioninstability in liquid rocket engines is undertaken using large eddy simulations (LES). HPCMP resources...have been applied to demonstrate the ability to simulate combustioninstability in liquid rocket engines and to gain further understanding of these

In 40K methane/LOX 5 KHz engine tests, (first transverse mode) combustioninstabilities observed by Rocketdyne are analyzed using Heidmann and Wieber's vaporization model to include LOX flow oscillations. The LOX flow oscillations are determined by including acoustic waves in the feed system analysis. The major parameter controlling stability is the distance (or time delay) associated with atomizing the LOX stream in the coaxial injection system. Results of the analysis that show the influence of mixture ratio, oxidizer and fuel injection velocities, burning time and combustion chamber/injector dimensions on stability are used to explain the existing data. Calculated results to predict the influence of design changes being made for the next set of experiments are also presented.

Lean burning is the burning of fuel-air mixtures with less than the chemically- balanced (stoichiometric) mixture. It produces a significant increase in fuel efficiency and reduction in pollution. However, the limits and control of lean burning are still not well understood.This is the motivation behind the study of instabilities in lean gas-phase combustion under microgravity conditions via direct numerical simulations and comparison of the results with experimental data.The goal is to gain fundamental insights in order to identify and understand the intrinsic chemical and fluid dynamical mechanisms responsible for these instabilities.The potential of this microgravity combustion research includes the development of technology that would reduce pollution and fire and explosion hazards, improve hazardous waste incineration and increase efficiency of the conversion of chemical energy to electric power or motive force.The results from this fundamental research will thus benefit chemical engineering and power generation. Its wide range of applications in industry includes lean-burning car engines.

During development of the gas generator for the liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen propellant J-2X rocket engine, combustioninstabilities were observed near the frequency of the first longitudinal acoustic mode of the hot gas combustion chamber duct. These instabilities were similar to intermediate-frequency or buzz-type instabilities as described in historical programs, except for several aspects: 1) the frequencies were low, in the realm of chug; 2) at times the instability oscillation amplitudes were quite large, with peak-to-peak amplitudes exceeding 50% of the mean chamber pressure along with the appearance of harmonics; 3) the chamber excitation was related to but not exactly at the first longitudinal combustion chamber acoustic mode; and 4) the injector provided mass flow rate oscillations induced by capacitance and inertance effects in the injector rather than by organ pipe resonances of the coaxial oxidizer posts. This type of combustioninstability is referred to as "injection coupling" because one critical driving source of the instability is mass flow rate oscillations from the injector. However, the type of injection coupling observed here is different than observed in previous instances of buzz instability with coaxial injectors, because of the lower frequencies and lack of influence from the oxidizer post organ pipe resonances. Test data and preliminary analyses of the initial combustioninstabilities were presented in several papers at the 5th Liquid Propulsion Subcommittee meeting. Since that time, additional hot-fire tests with several new hardware configurations have been conducted, and additional analyses have been completed. The analytical models described in previous papers have been updated to include the influences of new geometrical configurations, including a different oxidizer injector manifold configuration and a branch pipe in the hot gas duct that supplies gaseous helium during the start transient to pre-spin the turbine. In addition, the

An analytical injector model was developed specifically to analyze combustioninstability coupling between the injector hydraulics and the combustion process. This digital computer dynamic injector model will, for any imposed chamber of inlet pressure profile with a frequency ranging from 100 to 3000 Hz (minimum) accurately predict/calculate the instantaneous injector flowrates. The injector system is described in terms of which flow segments enter and leave each pressure node. For each flow segment, a resistance, line lengths, and areas are required as inputs (the line lengths and areas are used in determining inertance). For each pressure node, volume and acoustic velocity are required as inputs (volume and acoustic velocity determine capacitance). The geometric criteria for determining inertances of flow segments and capacitance of pressure nodes was set. Also, a technique was developed for analytically determining time averaged steady-state pressure drops and flowrates for every flow segment in an injector when such data is not known. These pressure drops and flowrates are then used in determining the linearized flow resistance for each line segment of flow.

This research aimed to gain a better understanding of the response of a gas-centered swirl coaxial injector to transverse combustioninstability. The goals of the research were to develop a combustion chamber that would be able to spontaneously produce transverse combustioninstability at elevated pressures and temperatures. Methods were also developed to analyze high-speed video images to understand the response of the injector. A combustion chamber was designed that produced high levels of instabilities. The chamber was capable of pressures as high as 1034 kPa (150 psi) and operated using decomposed 90% hydrogen peroxide and JP-8. The chamber used an array of seven gas-centered swirl coaxial injectors that exhibited linear instability to drive the transverse oscillations. The injector elements would operate in a monopropellant configuration flowing only decomposed hydrogen peroxide or in a bipropellant configuration. The location of the bipropellant injectors could be varied to change the level of the instability in the chamber from 10% of the chamber pressure up to 70% of the chamber pressure. A study element was placed in the center of the chamber where it was observed simultaneously by two high-speed video cameras which recorded a backlit video to show the location of the fuel spray and the location of the emitted CH* chemiluminescence. The videos were synchronized with high frequency pressure measurements to gain a full understanding of the physics in the combustion chamber. Results showed that the study element was coupled with the first mode velocity wave. This was expected due to the first mode velocity anti-node being located in the center of the chamber. The velocity is an absolute maximum twice during each cycle so the coupling with the second mode pressure was also investigated showing a possible coupling with both the velocity and pressure. The results of the first mode velocity showed that, as the velocity wave traveled through the chamber, the fuel

Integrated multi-fidelity modeling has been performed for combustioninstability in aerospace propulsion, which includes two levels of analysis: first, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using hybrid RANS/LES simulations for underlying physics investigations (high-fidelity modeling); second, modal decomposition techniques for diagnostics (analysis & validation); third, development of flame response model using model reduction techniques for practical design applications (low-order model). For the high-fidelity modeling, the relevant CFD code development work is moving towards combustioninstability prediction for liquid propulsion system. A laboratory-scale single-element lean direct injection (LDI) gas turbine combustor is used for configuration that produces self-excited combustioninstability. The model gas turbine combustor is featured with an air inlet section, air plenum, swirler-venturi-injector assembly, combustion chamber, and exit nozzle. The combustor uses liquid fuel (Jet-A/FT-SPK) and heated air up to 800K. Combustion dynamics investigations are performed with the same geometry and operating conditions concurrently between the experiment and computation at both high (φ=0.6) and low (φ=0.36) equivalence ratios. The simulation is able to reach reasonable agreement with experiment measurements in terms of the pressure signal. Computational analyses are also performed using an acoustically-open geometry to investigate the characteristic hydrodynamics in the combustor with both constant and perturbed inlet mass flow rates. Two hydrodynamic modes are identified by using Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) analysis: Vortex Breakdown Bubble (VBB) and swirling modes. Following that, the closed geometry simulation results are analyzed in three steps. In step one, a detailed cycle analysis shows two physically important couplings in the combustor: first, the acoustic compression enhances the spray drop breakup and vaporization, and generates more gaseous fuel for

Combustioninstability modeling of Solid Rocket Motors (SRM) remains a topic of active research. Many rockets display violent fluctuations in pressure, velocity, and temperature originating from the complex interactions between the combustion process, acoustics, and steady-state gas dynamics. Recent advances in defining the energy transport of disturbances within steady flow-fields have been applied by combustion stability modelers to improve the analysis framework. Employing this more accurate global energy balance requires a higher fidelity model of the SRM flow-field and acoustic mode shapes. The current industry standard analysis tool utilizes a one dimensional analysis of the time dependent fluid dynamics along with a quasi-three dimensional propellant grain regression model to determine the SRM ballistics. The code then couples with another application that calculates the eigenvalues of the one dimensional homogenous wave equation. The mean flow parameters and acoustic normal modes are coupled to evaluate the stability theory developed and popularized by Culick. The assumption of a linear, non-dissipative wave in a quiescent fluid remains valid while acoustic amplitudes are small and local gas velocities stay below Mach 0.2. The current study employs the COMSOL Multiphysics finite element framework to model the steady flow-field parameters and acoustic normal modes of a generic SRM. This work builds upon previous efforts to verify the use of the acoustic velocity potential equation (AVPE) laid out by Campos. The acoustic velocity potential (psi) describing the acoustic wave motion in the presence of an inhomogeneous steady high-speed flow is defined by, del squared psi - (lambda/c) squared psi - M x [M x del((del)(psi))] - 2((lambda)(M)/c + M x del(M) x (del)(psi) - 2(lambda)(psi)[M x del(1/c)] = 0. with M as the Mach vector, c as the speed of sound, and ? as the complex eigenvalue. The study requires one way coupling of the CFD High Mach Number Flow (HMNF

An analytical technique is developed to solve nonlinear three-dimensional, transverse and axial combustioninstability problems associated with liquid-propellant rocket motors. The Method of Weighted Residuals is used to determine the nonlinear stability characteristics of a cylindrical combustor with uniform injection of propellants at one end and a conventional DeLaval nozzle at the other end. Crocco's pressure sensitive time-lag model is used to describe the unsteady combustion process. The developed model predicts the transient behavior and nonlinear wave shapes as well as limit-cycle amplitudes and frequencies typical of unstable motor operation. The limit-cycle amplitude increases with increasing sensitivity of the combustion process to pressure oscillations. For transverse instabilities, calculated pressure waveforms exhibit sharp peaks and shallow minima, and the frequency of oscillation is within a few percent of the pure acoustic mode frequency. For axial instabilities, the theory predicts a steep-fronted wave moving back and forth along the combustor.

Internal combustion engines are operated under conditions of high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) to reduce NO x emissions and promote enhanced combustion modes such as HCCI. However, high EGR under certain conditions also promotes nonlinear feedback between cycles, leading to the development of combustioninstabilities and cyclic variability. We employ a two-zone phenomenological combustion model to simulate the onset of combustioninstabilities under highly dilute conditions and to illustrate the impact of these instabilities on emissions and fuel efficiency. The two-zone in-cylinder combustion model is coupled to a WAVE engine-simulation code through a Simulink interface, allowing rapid simulation of several hundred successive engine cycles with many external engine parametric effects included. We demonstrate how this hybrid model can be used to study strategies for adaptive feedback control to reduce cyclic combustioninstabilities and, thus, preserve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.

Interaction between flow instabilities and acoustic resonant modes and their effect on heat release were investigated and controlled in an experimental low-emission swirl stabilized combustor. Acoustic boundary conditions of the combustor were modified to excite combustioninstability at various axisymmetric and helical unstable modes in a fully premixed combustion. The combustion unstable modes were related to flow instabilities in the recirculating wakelike region on the combustor axis and the separating shear layer at the sudden expansion (dump plane). Flow field measurements were performed in a water tunnel using a simulated combustor configuration. The water tunnel tests demonstrated the existence of several modes of flow instabilities in a highly swirling flow, modes which were shown to affect the combustion process. Mean and turbulent characteristics of the internal and external swirling shear layers were measured and unstable flow modes were identified. Instability modes during combustion were visualized by phase locked images of OH chemiluminescence. The axisymmetric mode showed large variation of the heat release during one cycle, while the helical modes showed variations in the radial location of maximal heat release. Closed loop active control system was employed to suppress the thermoacoustic pressure oscillations and to reduce NOx emissions. Microphone and OH emission detection sensors monitored the combustion process and provided input to the control system. An acoustic source modulated the airflow and thus affected the mixing process and the combustion. Effective suppression of the pressure oscillations and the concomitant reduction of NOx emissions were associated with a reduced coherence of the flow structures which excited the thermoacoustic instability.

An improved apparatus and process for removal of particulates entrained in a gas stream are provided. The removal process employs a pulse combustor to provide an acoustic pressure wave to acoustically enhance agglomeration of particulates which may be collected and removed using a conventional separation apparatus. The apparatus may be employed as a direct fired system for improved operation of gas-operated equipment such as a gas turbine, or may, alternatively, be employed as an add-on subsystem for combustion exhaust clean-up. Additionally, added particulates may include a sorbent for effecting sorption of other contaminants such as sulfur. Various other particulates for contaminant removal may also be introduced into the system as exemplified by alkali-gettering agents.

An improved apparatus and process for removal of particulates entrained in a gas stream are provided. The removal process employs a pulse combustor to provide an acoustic pressure wave to acoustically enhance bimodal agglomeration of particulates which may be collected and removed using a conventional separation apparatus. A particulate having a size different from the size of the particulate in the gas stream to be cleaned is introduced into the system to effectuate the bimodal process. The apparatus may be employed as a direct fired system for improved operation of gas-operated equipment such as a gas turbine, or may, alternatively, be employed as an add-on subsystem for combustion exhaust clean-up. Additionally, the added particulate may be a sorbent for effecting sorption of other contaminants such as sulfur. Various other particulates for contaminant removal may also be introduced into the system as exemplified by alkali-gettering agents.

Combustion at high pressure in applications such as rocket engines and gas turbine engines commonly experience destructive combustioninstabilities. These instabilities results from interactions between combustion heat release, fluid mechanics and acoustics. This research explores the significant affect of unstable fluid mechanics processes in augmenting unstable periodic combustion heat release. The frequency of the unstable heat release may shift to match one of the combustors natural acoustic frequencies which then can result in significant energy exchange from chemical to acoustic energy resulting in thermoacoustic instability. The mechanisms of the fluid mechanics in coupling combustion to acoustics are very broad with many varying mechanisms explained in detail in the first chapter. Significant effort is made in understanding these mechanisms in this research in order to find commonalities, useful for mitigating multiple instability mechanisms. The complexity of combustioninstabilities makes mitigation of combustioninstabilities very difficult as few mitigation methods have historically proven to be very effective for broad ranges of combustioninstabilities. This research identifies turbulence intensity near the forward stagnation point and movement of the forward stagnation point as a common link in what would otherwise appear to be very different instabilities. The most common method of stabilization of both premixed and diffusion flame combustion is through the introduction of swirl. Reverse flow along the centerline is introduced to transport heat and chemically active combustion products back upstream to sustain combustion. This research develops methods to suppress the movement of the forward stagnation point without suppressing the development of the vortex breakdown process which is critical to the transport of heat and reactive species necessary for flame stabilization. These methods are useful in suppressing the local turbulence at the forward

Coaxial Rocket Injector 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER In-House 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) Harvazinski, M. , Huang, C...CombustionInstability Mechanisms in a Pressure-coupled Gas-gas Coaxial Rocket Injector Matthew E. Harvazinski∗, Air Force Research Laboratory...downstream and the vortex partially decayed before impingement, the timing of this event was not well correlated with the acoustic mode.11 For the third

This paper describes a study of a lean premixed (LP) methane-air combustion wave in a two-dimensional Cartesian and axisymmetric coordinate system. Lean premixed combustors provide low emission and high efficiency; however, they are susceptible to combustioninstabilities. The present study focuses on the behavior of the flame as it interacts with an external acoustic disturbance. It was found that the flame oscillations increase as the disturbance amplitude is increased. Furthermore, when the frequency of the disturbance is at resonance with a chamber frequency, the instabilities increase. For the axisymmetric geometry, the flame is found to be more unstable compared to the Cartesian case. In some cases, these instabilities were severe and led to flame extinction. In the axisymmetric case, several passive control devices were tested to assess their effectiveness. It is found that an acoustic cavity is better able at controlling the pressure fluctuations in the chamber.

Spontaneous instabilities can pose a significant challenge to verification of combustion stability, and characterizing its onset is an important avenue of improvement for stability assessments of liquid propellant rocket engines. Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) is used here to explore nonlinear combustion dynamics that might give insight into instability. Multiple types of patterns representative of different dynamical states are identified within fluctuating chamber pressure data, and markers for impending instability are found. A class of metrics which describe these patterns is also calculated. RQA metrics are compared with and interpreted against another metric from nonlinear time series analysis, the Hurst exponent, to help better distinguish between stable and unstable operation.

Modifications to acoustic eigenmodes in combustion chambers such as those of liquid propellant rocket engines, produced by spatial variations of density and sound speed that arise mainly through progress of combustion processes, are analyzed by using a variational method. The variational principle shows that the eigenvalue is the ratio of a weighted acoustic kinetic energy to a weighted acoustic potential energy, and the eigenfunction is the minimizing function of this ratio. A sample calculation is made for the case in which variations of the properties occur dominantly in the longitudinal direction, with lower temperatures and higher densities prevailing near the injector. The results of the calculation exhibit two major characteristics: the longitudinal density variation aids transfer of acoustic kinetic energy from a lower mode to the adjacent higher mode, so that the pure transverse modes have substantially larger reductions (sometimes exceeding 50%) of their eigenvalues than the combined modes; and variations of the acoustic pressure gradients are found to be larger in high-density regions, so that the acoustic pressure amplitude for purely tangential modes is found to be much higher near the injector than near the nozzle. The higher head acoustic pressure may contribute to the greater sensitivity of acousticinstability to characteristics of the flames near the injectors, as commonly found in engine tests. The improved acoustic eigensolutions can also be helpful in sizing damping devices, such as baffles or acoustic liners.

The cycle continues as more velocity perturbations leading to vortex formation are induced by the strengthened acoustic field. Other sources of heat...single-injector combustor were better able to capture the higher order harmonic modes with limit cycle amplitudes that approached the experimental...combustion and the acoustics leading to growth and limit cycle of the pressure oscillations. Further objectives are to investigate the response of

the spatial mode kv would contain all normalized numbers and vice versa. Or, we can write Eq.(6) in this way, T k k k kA u v (7) In Eq.(7), ku is the...with traditional band -pass filtering based analysis for the study of self-excited combustioninstabilities in a longitudinal mode rocket combustor. The...traditional band -pass filtering based analysis for the study of self-excited combustioninstabilities in a longitudinal mode rocket combustor. The POD analysis

"Multi-Scale Extended Kalman" (MSEK) is a novel model-based control approach recently found to be effective for suppressing combustioninstabilities in gas turbines. A control law formulated in this approach for fuel modulation demonstrated steady suppression of a high-frequency combustioninstability (less than 500Hz) in a liquid-fuel combustion test rig under engine-realistic conditions. To make-up for severe transport-delays on control effect, the MSEK controller combines a wavelet -like Multi-Scale analysis and an Extended Kalman Observer to predict the thermo-acoustic states of combustion pressure perturbations. The commanded fuel modulation is composed of a damper action based on the predicted states, and a tones suppression action based on the Multi-Scale estimation of thermal excitations and other transient disturbances. The controller performs automatic adjustments of the gain and phase of these actions to minimize the Time-Scale Averaged Variances of the pressures inside the combustion zone and upstream of the injector. The successful demonstration of Active Combustion Control with this MSEK controller completed an important NASA milestone for the current research in advanced combustion technologies.

Considerable interest lies in the ability to characterize the onset of spontaneous instabilities within liquid propellant rocket engine (LPRE) combustion devices. Linear techniques, such as fast Fourier transforms, various correlation parameters, and critical damping parameters, have been used at great length for over fifty years. Recently, nonlinear time series methods have been applied to deduce information pertaining to instability incipiency hidden in seemingly stochastic combustion noise. A technique commonly used in biological sciences known as the Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis has been extended to the combustion dynamics field, and is introduced here as a data analysis approach complementary to linear ones. Advancing, a modified technique is leveraged to extract artifacts of impending combustioninstability that present themselves a priori growth to limit cycle amplitudes. Analysis is demonstrated on data from J-2X gas generator testing during which a distinct spontaneous instability was observed. Comparisons are made to previous work wherein the data were characterized using linear approaches. Verification of the technique is performed by examining idealized signals and comparing two separate, independently developed tools.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne are developing a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocket engine for future upper stage and trans-lunar applications. This engine, designated the J-2X, is a higher pressure, higher thrust variant of the Apollo-era J-2 engine. The contract for development was let to Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2006. Over the past several years, development of the gas generator for the J-2X engine has progressed through a variety of workhorse injector, chamber, and feed system configurations on the component test stand at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Several of the initial configurations resulted in combustioninstability of the workhorse gas generator assembly at a frequency near the first longitudinal mode of the combustion chamber. In this paper, several aspects of these combustioninstabilities are discussed, including injector, combustion chamber, feed system, and nozzle influences. To ensure elimination of the instabilities at the engine level, and to understand the stability margin, the gas generator system has been modeled at the NASA MSFC with two techniques, the Rocket Combustor Interaction Design and Analysis (ROCCID) code and a lumped-parameter MATLAB(TradeMark) model created as an alternative calculation to the ROCCID methodology. To correctly predict the instability characteristics of all the chamber and injector geometries and test conditions as a whole, several inputs to the submodels in ROCCID and the MATLAB(TradeMark) model were modified. Extensive sensitivity calculations were conducted to determine how to model and anchor a lumped-parameter injector response, and finite-element and acoustic analyses were conducted on several complicated combustion chamber geometries to determine how to model and anchor the chamber response. These modifications and their ramification for future stability analyses of this type are discussed.

Complex thermoacoustic oscillations are observed experimentally in a simple laboratory combustor that burns lean premixed fuel-air mixture, as a result of nonlinear interaction between the acoustic field and the combustion processes. The application of nonlinear time series analysis, particularly techniques based on phase space reconstruction from acquired pressure data, reveals rich dynamical behavior and the existence of several complex states. A route to chaos for thermoacoustic instability is established experimentally for the first time. We show that, as the location of the heat source is gradually varied, self-excited periodic thermoacoustic oscillations undergo transition to chaos via the Ruelle-Takens scenario.

A computerized analytical model, developed to predict the effects of baffles on combustioninstability, was modified in an effort to improve the ability to properly predict stability effects. The model was modified: (1) to replace a single spatially-averaged response factor by separate values for each baffle compartment; (2) to calculate the axial component of the acoustic energy flux, and (3) to permit analysis of traveling waves in a thin annular chamber. Allowance for separate average response factors in each baffle compartment was found to significantly affect the predicted results. With this modification, an optimum baffle length was predicted which gave maximum stability.

The secondary effects in turbulent combustioninstabilities leading to flashback are investigated, including those due to buoyancy and contraction at the combustor outlet. Experiments were conducted in an oblong, rectangular cross-section combustion tunnel, where the effects of a bluff-body flames holder were generated by a rear-facing step behind a streamlined inlet nozzle. The results of experiments leading to flashback with the step mounted at the bottom of the combustion chamber were compared to those of experiments in which it was located at the top. Irrespective of the flow obstructions introduced downstream, the critical equivalence ratio for flashback was consistently lower with the step at the bottom, indicating that buoyancy was enhancing the growth of the recirculation zone that pushed the flame upstream and caused flashback. The contraction at the end of the combustion chamber had a promoting influence on the process of vortex pairing, re-enforcing the influence of the trailing vortices over that of the recirculation vortex system, and thereby curbing the tendency to flashback. Provided that the flow velocity was low, however, the characteristic features of combustioninstabilities leading to flashback in the absence of contraction could still be established in its presence.

In a three species electron-ion-dust plasma following a generalized non-Maxwellian distribution function (Lorentzian or kappa), it is shown that a kinetic instability of dust-acoustic mode exists. The instability threshold is affected when such (quasineutral) plasma permeates through another static plasma. Such case is of interest when the solar wind is streaming through the cometary plasma in the presence of interstellar dust. In the limits of phase velocity of the waves larger and smaller than the thermal velocity of dust particles, the dispersion properties and growth rate of dust-acoustic mode are investigated analytically with validation via numerical analysis.

The instability of position of a growing spherical crystal in an acoustic field is studied. Due to the Bjerknes force, a spherical crystal, whose position is shifted from an antinode of pressure, moves in the acoustic field. This displacement, stable in the case of bubbles in a cavitation experiment, turns out to be unstable in the case of crystallization. This effect is studied for an arbitrary Atwood number. To cite this article: M. Ben Amar, C. R. Mecanique 332 (2004).

Experimental and analytical studies were conducted to explore thermo-acoustic coupling during the onset of combustioninstability in various air-breathing combustor configurations. These include a laboratory-scale 200-kW dump combustor and a 100-kW augmentor featuring a v-gutter flame holder. They were used to simulate main combustion chambers and afterburners in aero engines, respectively. The three primary themes of this work includes: 1) modeling heat release fluctuations for stability analysis, 2) conducting active combustion control with alternative fuels, and 3) demonstrating practical active control for augmentor instability suppression. The phenomenon of combustioninstabilities remains an unsolved problem in propulsion engines, mainly because of the difficulty in predicting the fluctuating component of heat release without extensive testing. A hybrid model was developed to describe both the temporal and spatial variations in dynamic heat release, using a separation of variables approach that requires only a limited amount of experimental data. The use of sinusoidal basis functions further reduced the amount of data required. When the mean heat release behavior is known, the only experimental data needed for detailed stability analysis is one instantaneous picture of heat release at the peak pressure phase. This model was successfully tested in the dump combustor experiments, reproducing the correct sign of the overall Rayleigh index as well as the remarkably accurate spatial distribution pattern of fluctuating heat release. Active combustion control was explored for fuel-flexible combustor operation using twelve different jet fuels including bio-synthetic and Fischer-Tropsch types. Analysis done using an actuated spray combustion model revealed that the combustion response times of these fuels were similar. Combined with experimental spray characterizations, this suggested that controller performance should remain effective with various alternative fuels

While considerable progress was made on understanding the various modes of flame instability at the fundamental level, and substantial empirical information and phenomenological descriptions was also accumulated on combustioninstability within combustion chambers such as those of rocket engines, few attempts were made to explore the possible macro-scale excitation of the latter through the micro-scale manifestation of the former. Here we present an initial attempt towards identifying such a possibility and the associated coupling mechanisms. We shall incorporate the flame parameters into the classical theories of liquid-propellant rocket engines, and then implement the rocket dynamics into the analyses of premixed and diffusion flame segments. The analyses are conducted for the various instability modes, including the diffusional-thermal, Darrieus-Landau, and Rayleigh-Taylor (body-force) instabilities for premixed flames, and the Kelvin-Helmholtz and body-force instabilities for diffusion flames. The role of chamber-generated sound on stabilizing the inherent flame instabilities and triggering the parametric instability is also considered.

High-speed schlieren cinematography, combined with synchronized pressure transducer records, was used to investigate the mechanism of combustioninstabilities leading to flashback. The combustion chamber had an oblong rectangular cross-section to model the essential features of planar flow, and was provided with a rearward facing step acting as a flameholder. As the rich limit was approached, three instability modes were observed: (1) humming - a significant increase in the amplitude of the vortex pattern; (2) buzzing - a large-scale oscillation of the flame; and (3) chucking - a cyclic reformation of the flame, which results in flashback. The mechanism of these phenomena is ascribed to the action of vortices in the recirculation zone and their interactions with the trailing vortex pattern of the turbulent mixing layer behind the step.

A system using a hot-wire transducer as an analog of a liquid droplet of propellant was employed to investigate the ingredients of the acousticinstability of liquid-propellant rocket engines. It was assumed that the combustion process was vaporization-limited and that the combustion chamber was acoustically similar to a closed-closed right-circular cylinder. Before studying the hot-wire closed-loop system (the analog system), a microphone closed-loop system, which used the response of a microphone as the source of a linear feedback exciting signal, was investigated to establish the characteristics of self-sustenance of acoustic fields. Self-sustained acoustic fields were found to occur only at resonant frequencies of the chamber. In the hot-wire closed-loop system, the response of hot-wire anemometer was used as the source of the feedback exciting signal. The self-sustained acoustic fields which developed in the system were always found to be harmonically distorted and to have as their fundamental frquency a resonant frequency for which there also existed a second resonant frequency which was approximately twice the fundamental frequency.

Combustioninstability in liquid rocket engines is simulated computationally by using a simple two-parameter model for the combustion response function. The objectives of the study are to assess the capabilities of CFD algorithms for instability studies and to investigate the response to parametric effects such as bombs and distributed combustion. Results indicate that numerical solutions of high accuracy can be obtained if a sufficient number of grid points are used per wavelength of the disturbance. The short-term response to bombs or pulses triggers a large number of modes in the combustor whose faithful resolution requires highly dense grids, although there is evidence that correct long-term solutions can be obtained even if all the short-term frequencies are not resolved. Long-term responses to pulses are shown to decay to the most unstable mode in small amplitude cases, and to exhibit limit cycles in large amplitude cases. Comparison of distributed with concentrated heat release indicates the former is more stable for given values of the combustion response parameters, and that the distributed heat release gives rise to higher frequency disturbances. Wave steepening is observed in the solutions, but its effect is less pronounced in multidimensional waves than in one-dimensional waves.

A computational method for the analysis of longitudinal-mode liquid rocket combustioninstability has been developed based on the unsteady, quasi-one-dimensional Euler equations where the combustion process source terms were introduced through the incorporation of a two-zone, linearized representation: (1) A two-parameter collapsed combustion zone at the injector face, and (2) a two-parameter distributed combustion zone based on a Lagrangian treatment of the propellant spray. The unsteady Euler equations in inhomogeneous form retain full hyperbolicity and are integrated implicitly in time using second-order, high-resolution, characteristic-based, flux-differencing spatial discretization with Roe-averaging of the Jacobian matrix. This method was initially validated against an analytical solution for nonreacting, isentropic duct acoustics with specified admittances at the inflow and outflow boundaries. For small amplitude perturbations, numerical predictions for the amplification coefficient and oscillation period were found to compare favorably with predictions from linearized small-disturbance theory as long as the grid exceeded a critical density (100 nodes/wavelength). The numerical methodology was then exercised on a generic combustor configuration using both collapsed and distributed combustion zone models with a short nozzle admittance approximation for the outflow boundary. In these cases, the response parameters were varied to determine stability limits defining resonant coupling onset.

The results of experimental studies of the interaction of electrical discharges in the acoustic oscillations in the combustion of isobutane are presented in the article. Electric discharges were created using a pulsed high voltage source at specified intervals. The purpose of the study was to determine the feasibility of using electrical pulse action to control combustion. The study was conducted on the specifically designed pattern of the combustion chamber with a swirl burner in the frequency range from 100 Hz to 1400 Hz. The study found that the method of periodic pulsed electrical influences can be used to control the combustion in the combustion chamber model. There is a steady increase in the amplitude of the oscillations in the combustion chamber model. Effects due to the mechanism of interaction of acoustic waves and oscillations heat release from the combustion zone. Estimated physical mechanism is a periodic change in the concentration of ions in the interaction of the combustion zone with the electric field of high potential. The proposed control method is advantageous in terms of energy costs.

In engine combustion systems such as rockets, aero-engines and gas turbines, pressure fluctuations are always present, even during normal operation. One of design prerequisites for the engine combustors is stable operation, since large-amplitude self-sustained pressure fluctuations (also known as combustioninstability) have the potential to cause serious structural damage and catastrophic engine failure. To dampen pressure fluctuations and to reduce noise, acoustic dampers are widely applied as a passive control means to stabilize combustion/engine systems. However, they cannot respond to the dynamic changes of operating conditions and tend to be effective over certain narrow range of frequencies. To maintain their optimum damping performance over a broad frequency range, extensive researches have been conducted during the past four decades. The present work is to summarize the status, challenges and progress of implementing such acoustic dampers on engine systems. The damping effect and mechanism of various acoustic dampers, such as Helmholtz resonators, perforated liners, baffles, half- and quarter-wave tube are introduced first. A summary of numerical, experimental and theoretical studies are then presented to review the progress made so far. Finally, as an alternative means, ';tunable acoustic dampers' are discussed. Potential, challenges and issues associated with the dampers practical implementation are highlighted.

The influence of injection conditions on rocket engine combustion stability is investigated for a sub-scale combustion chamber with shear coaxial injection elements and the propellant combination hydrogen-oxygen. The experimental results presented are from a series of tests conducted at subcritical and supercritical pressures for oxygen and for both ambient and cryogenic temperature hydrogen. The stability of the system is characterised by the root mean squared amplitude of dynamic combustion chamber pressure in the upper part of the acoustic spectrum relevant for high frequency combustioninstabilities. Results are presented for both unforced and externally forced combustion chamber configurations. It was found that, for both the unforced and externally forced configurations, the injection velocity had the strongest influence on combustion chamber stability. Through the use of multivariate linear regression the influence of hydrogen injection temperature and hydrogen injection mass flow rate were best able to explain the variance in stability for dependence on injection velocity ratio. For unforced tests turbulent jet noise from injection was found to dominate the energy content of the signal. For the externally forced configuration a non-linear regression model was better able to predict the variance, suggesting the influence of non-linear behaviour. The response of the system to variation of injection conditions was found to be small; suggesting that the combustion chamber investigated in the experiment is highly stable.

This experimental study investigates the response of burning liquid fuel droplets exposed to standing acoustic waves, extending prior studies quantifying mean and temporal flame response to moderate acoustic excitation. This investigation explores alternative fuels exposed to a range of acoustic forcing conditions (frequencies and amplitudes), with a focus on ethanol and JP-8. Three fundamental flame regimes are observed: sustained oscillatory combustion, periodic partial extinction and reignition (PPER), and full extinction. Phase-locked OH* chemiluminescence imaging and local temporal pressure measurements allow quantification of the combustion-acoustic coupling through the local Rayleigh index G. As expected, PPER produces negative G values, despite having clear flame oscillations. PPER is observed to occur at low-frequency, high amplitude excitation, where the acoustic time scales are large compared with kinetic/reaction times scales for diffusion-limited combustion processes. These quantitative differences in behavior are determined to depend on localized fluid mechanical strain created by the acoustic excitation as well as reaction kinetics. Supported by AFOSR Grant FA9550-15-1-0339.

Increasingly stringent regulations and the need to tackle rising fuel prices have placed great emphasis on the design of aeronautical gas turbines, which are unfortunately more and more prone to combustioninstabilities. In the particular field of annular combustion chambers, these instabilities often take the form of azimuthal modes. To predict these modes, one must compute the full combustion chamber, which remained out of reach until very recently and the development of massively parallel computers. In this article, full annular Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of two helicopter combustors, which differ only on the swirlers' design, are performed. In both computations, LES captures self-established rotating azimuthal modes. However, the two cases exhibit different thermo-acoustic responses and the resulting limit-cycles are different. With the first design, a self-excited strong instability develops, leading to pulsating flames and local flashback. In the second case, the flames are much less affected by the azimuthal mode and remain stable, allowing an acceptable operation. Hence, this study highlights the potential of LES for discriminating injection system designs. To cite this article: P. Wolf et al., C. R. Mecanique 337 (2009).

Acoustic oscillations in practical combustion devices such as pulse combustors and rocket motors, whether desirable or not, are properly interpreted as combustioninstabilities. A nonlinear stability analysis of the corresponding fluid motions than shows that the nonsteady behavior is governed by infinitely coupled systems of nonlinear evolution equations for the amplitudes of the classical acoustic modes. However, under certain conditions, it has been conjectured that relatively low-order truncations can give qualitatively correct physical results. In the present work, one particular model of a pulse combustor is considered, and a parameter regime in the neighborhood of a primary acoustic bifurcation where either one or a pair of purely longitudinal acoustic modes achieves a positive linear growth rate is focused upon. In the first case, it is formally shown that a decoupling occurs such that a two-mode approximation consisting of the linearly unstable mode and its first resonant harmonic completely determines the dynamics of the oscillation. In the later case, it is again demonstrated that a decoupling occurs, and although mode interactions require the retention of additional modes besides the two linearly unstable modes and their first resonant harmonics, a relatively low-order dynamical system still governs the bifurcation behavior. The presence of two linearly unstable modes is then shown to lead to more complicated dynamics, including the stable secondary bifurcation of a multiperiodic acoustic oscillation from one of the single-period primary branches.

During the development of the BR710 jet engine, audible combustor instabilities (termed rumble) occurred. Amplitudes measured with test cell microphones were up to 130 dB at around 100 Hz. Disturbances of this amplitude are clearly undesirable, even if only present during start-up, and a research program was initiated to eliminate the problem. Presented here is the methodical and structured approach used to identify, understand, and remove the instability. Some reference is made to theory, which was used for guidance, but the focus of the work is on the research done to find the cause of the problem and to correct it. The investigation followed two separate, but parallel, paths--one looking in detail at individual components of the engine to identify possible involvement in the instability and the other looking at the pressure signals from various parts of a complete engine to help pinpoint the source of the disturbance. The main cause of the BR710 combustor rumble was found to be a self-excited aerodynamic instability arising from the design of the fuel injector head. In the end, minor modifications lead to spray pattern changes, which greatly reduced the combustor noise. As a result of this work, new recommendation are made for reducing the risk of combustioninstabilities in jet engines.

This paper quantitatively examines the occurrence of large-scale coherent structures in the flow field during combustioninstability in comparison with the flow-combustion-acoustic system when it is stable. For this purpose, the features in the recirculation zone of the confined flow past a backward-facing step are studied in terms of Lagrangian coherent structures. The experiments are conducted at a Reynolds number of 18600 and an equivalence ratio of 0.9 of the premixed fuel-air mixture for two combustor lengths, the long duct corresponding to instability and the short one to the stable case. Simultaneous measurements of the velocity field using time-resolved particle image velocimetry and the CH^{*} chemiluminescence of the flame along with pressure time traces are obtained. The extracted ridges of the finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) fields delineate dynamically distinct regions of the flow field. The presence of large-scale vortical structures and their modulation over different time instants are well captured by the FTLE ridges for the long combustor where high-amplitude acoustic oscillations are self-excited. In contrast, small-scale vortices signifying Kelvin-Helmholtz instability are observed in the short duct case. Saddle-type flow features are found to separate the distinct flow structures for both combustor lengths. The FTLE ridges are found to align with the flame boundaries in the upstream regions, whereas farther downstream, the alignment is weaker due to dilatation of the flow by the flame's heat release. Specifically, the FTLE ridges encompass the flame curl-up for both the combustor lengths, and thus act as the surrogate flame boundaries. The flame is found to propagate upstream from an earlier vortex roll-up to a newer one along the backward-time FTLE ridge connecting the two structures.

This paper quantitatively examines the occurrence of large-scale coherent structures in the flow field during combustioninstability in comparison with the flow-combustion-acoustic system when it is stable. For this purpose, the features in the recirculation zone of the confined flow past a backward-facing step are studied in terms of Lagrangian coherent structures. The experiments are conducted at a Reynolds number of 18600 and an equivalence ratio of 0.9 of the premixed fuel-air mixture for two combustor lengths, the long duct corresponding to instability and the short one to the stable case. Simultaneous measurements of the velocity field using time-resolved particle image velocimetry and the C H* chemiluminescence of the flame along with pressure time traces are obtained. The extracted ridges of the finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) fields delineate dynamically distinct regions of the flow field. The presence of large-scale vortical structures and their modulation over different time instants are well captured by the FTLE ridges for the long combustor where high-amplitude acoustic oscillations are self-excited. In contrast, small-scale vortices signifying Kelvin-Helmholtz instability are observed in the short duct case. Saddle-type flow features are found to separate the distinct flow structures for both combustor lengths. The FTLE ridges are found to align with the flame boundaries in the upstream regions, whereas farther downstream, the alignment is weaker due to dilatation of the flow by the flame's heat release. Specifically, the FTLE ridges encompass the flame curl-up for both the combustor lengths, and thus act as the surrogate flame boundaries. The flame is found to propagate upstream from an earlier vortex roll-up to a newer one along the backward-time FTLE ridge connecting the two structures.

This article describes a study of a two-dimensional two-inlet side-dump combustor fed with a mixture of air and propane. The present results concern symmetric operating conditions with respect to the two inlets. Stable and unstable regimes which depend on the inlet velocity and the equivalence ratio have been identified. Schlieren visualization, radical imaging with an intensified CCD camera, and simultaneous pressure, inlet velocity and C[sub 2] emission light measurements, have been used to characterize the combustor behavior. Imaging of the flowfield has provided an insight on the flame structure and its interaction with the entering jets. Two low-frequency unstable modes (a fuel-rich regime and a fuel-lean regime with an instability frequency around 500 Hz) were studied using a conditional imaging technique. It was found that unsteady heat release occurs in two different ways: pulsating combustion in the dome region and convection of reaction zones downstream of the jet-impingement region. Flame oscillations were induced by a periodic impingement of the jets on the centerplane of the chamber. Pressure fluctuations in the test section were roughly in phase with the global C[sub 2] emission, indicating that the instabilities were sustained by energy addition to the acoustic field. A two-dimensional distribution of the Rayleigh index computed for each unstable mode indicated that the fuel-lean mode was driven by the unsteady heat release in the dome region whereas the fuel-rich mode was driven by the flame oscillations downstream of the jet-impingement region. The transition from the fuel-lean to the fuel-rich instability featured a shift of driving mechanism. This study shows that even in the idealized geometry the coupling mechanisms leading to low-frequency combustioninstabilities are not unique and illustrates the difficulty of devising predictive models.

We explore numerically the morphological patterns of thermodiffusive instabilities in combustion fronts with a continuum fuel source, within a range of Lewis numbers and ignition temperatures, focusing on the cellular regime. For this purpose, we generalize the recent model of Brailovsky et al. to include distinct process kinetics and reactant heterogeneity. The generalized model is derived analytically and validated with other established models in the limit of infinite Lewis number for zero-order and first-order kinetics. Cellular and dendritic instabilities are found at low Lewis numbers. These are studied using a dynamic adaptive mesh refinement technique that allows very large computational domains, thus allowing us to reduce finite-size effects that can affect or even preclude the emergence of these patterns. Our numerical linear stability analysis is consistent with the analytical results of Brailovsky et al. The distinct types of dynamics found in the vicinity of the critical Lewis number, ranging from steady-state cells to continued tip splitting and cell merging, are well described within the framework of thermodiffusive instabilities and are consistent with previous numerical studies. These types of dynamics are classified as "quasilinear" and characterized by low-amplitude cells that may be strongly affected by the mode selection mechanism and growth prescribed by the linear theory. Below this range of Lewis number, highly nonlinear effects become prominent and large-amplitude, complex cellular and seaweed dendritic morphologies emerge.

All liquid propellant rocket instability calculations in current use have limited value in the predictive sense and serve mainly as a correlating framework for the available data sets. The well-known n-t model first introduced by Crocco and Cheng in 1956 is still used as the primary analytical tool of this type. A multitude of attempts to establish practical analytical methods have achieved only limited success. These methods usually produce only stability boundary maps that are of little use in making critical design decisions in new motor development programs. Recent progress in understanding the mechanisms of combustioninstability in solid propellant rockets"' provides a firm foundation for a new approach to prediction, diagnosis, and correction of the closely related problems in liquid motor instability. For predictive tools to be useful in the motor design process, they must have the capability to accurately determine: 1) time evolution of the pressure oscillations and limit amplitude, 2) critical triggering pulse amplitude, and 3) unsteady heat transfer rates at injector surfaces and chamber walls. The method described in this paper relates these critical motor characteristics directly to system design parameters. Inclusion of mechanisms such as wave steepening, vorticity production and transport, and unsteady detonation wave phenomena greatly enhance the representation of key features of motor chamber oscillatory behavior. The basic theoretical model is described and preliminary computations are compared to experimental data. A plan to develop the new predictive method into a comprehensive analysis tool is also described.

We explore numerically the morphological patterns of thermodiffusive instabilities in combustion fronts with a continuum fuel source, within a range of Lewis numbers and ignition temperatures, focusing on the cellular regime. For this purpose, we generalize the recent model of Brailovsky et al. to include distinct process kinetics and reactant heterogeneity. The generalized model is derived analytically and validated with other established models in the limit of infinite Lewis number for zero-order and first-order kinetics. Cellular and dendritic instabilities are found at low Lewis numbers. These are studied using a dynamic adaptive mesh refinement technique that allows very large computational domains, thus allowing us to reduce finite-size effects that can affect or even preclude the emergence of these patterns. Our numerical linear stability analysis is consistent with the analytical results of Brailovsky et al. The distinct types of dynamics found in the vicinity of the critical Lewis number, ranging from steady-state cells to continued tip splitting and cell merging, are well described within the framework of thermodiffusive instabilities and are consistent with previous numerical studies. These types of dynamics are classified as "quasilinear" and characterized by low-amplitude cells that may be strongly affected by the mode selection mechanism and growth prescribed by the linear theory. Below this range of Lewis number, highly nonlinear effects become prominent and large-amplitude, complex cellular and seaweed dendritic morphologies emerge.

The filamentation and ion acousticinstabilities of nonextensive current-driven plasma in the ion acoustic frequency range have been studied using the Lorentz transformation formulas. Based on the kinetic theory, the possibility of filamentation instability and its growth rate as well as the ion acousticinstability have been investigated. The results of the research show that the possibility and growth rate of these instabilities are significantly dependent on the electron nonextensive parameter and drift velocity. Besides, the increase of electrons nonextensive parameter and drift velocity lead to the increase of the growth rates of both instabilities. In addition, the wavelength region in which the filamentation instability occurs is more stretched in the presence of higher values of drift velocity and nonextensive parameter. Finally, the results of filamentation and ion acousticinstabilities have been compared and the conditions for filamentation instability to be dominant mode of instability have been presented.

We present a detailed study on the characterization of the degeneration process in combustioninstability based on dynamical systems theory. We deal with combustioninstability in a lean premixed-type gas-turbine model combustor, one of the fundamentally and practically important combustion systems. The dynamic behavior of combustioninstability in close proximity to lean blowout is dominated by a stochastic process and transits to periodic oscillations created by thermoacoustic combustion oscillations via chaos with increasing equivalence ratio [Chaos 21, 013124 (2011), 10.1063/1.3563577; Chaos 22, 043128 (2012), 10.1063/1.4766589]. Thermoacoustic combustion oscillations degenerate with a further increase in the equivalence ratio, and the dynamic behavior leads to chaotic fluctuations via quasiperiodic oscillations. The concept of dynamical systems theory presented here allows us to clarify the nonlinear characteristics hidden in complex combustion dynamics.

We present a detailed study on the characterization of the degeneration process in combustioninstability based on dynamical systems theory. We deal with combustioninstability in a lean premixed-type gas-turbine model combustor, one of the fundamentally and practically important combustion systems. The dynamic behavior of combustioninstability in close proximity to lean blowout is dominated by a stochastic process and transits to periodic oscillations created by thermoacoustic combustion oscillations via chaos with increasing equivalence ratio [Chaos 21, 013124 (2011); Chaos 22, 043128 (2012)]. Thermoacoustic combustion oscillations degenerate with a further increase in the equivalence ratio, and the dynamic behavior leads to chaotic fluctuations via quasiperiodic oscillations. The concept of dynamical systems theory presented here allows us to clarify the nonlinear characteristics hidden in complex combustion dynamics.

A new fully implicit, time accurate algorithm suitable for chemically reacting, viscous flows in the transonic-to-hypersonic regime is described. The method is based on a class of Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) schemes and uses successive Gauss-Siedel relaxation sweeps. The inversion of large matrices is avoided by partitioning the system into reacting and nonreacting parts, but still maintaining a fully coupled interaction. As a result, the matrices that have to be inverted are of the same size as those obtained with the commonly used point implicit methods. In this paper we illustrate the applicability of the new algorithm to hypervelocity unsteady combustion applications. We present a series of numerical simulations of the periodic combustioninstabilities observed in ballistic-range experiments of blunt projectiles flying at subdetonative speeds through hydrogen-air mixtures. The computed frequencies of oscillation are in excellent agreement with experimental data.

A theoretical investigation has been made of the dust ion-acoustic filamentation instability in an unmagnetized current-driven dusty plasma by using the Lorentz transformation formulas. The effect of collision between the charged particles with neutrals and their thermal motion on this instability is considered. Developing the filamentation instability of the current-driven dust ion-acoustic wave allows us to determine the period and the establishment time of the filamentation structure and threshold for instability development.

Acoustics in Combustion Dynamics Simulations 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER In-House 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) Yoon, C...spray modeling and its effects on chamber acoustics in combustion dynamics simulations. The fuel spray is modeled using an Eulerian-Lagrangian...limitations in describing secondary atomization. In addition, effects of fuel spray modeling on chamber acoustics are studied using combustion dynamics

Two branches of research are conducted in this thesis. The first deals with nonlinear combustion response as a mechanism for triggering combustioninstabilities in solid rocket motors. A nonlinear wave equation is developed to study a wide class of combustion response functions to second-order in fluctuation amplitude. Conditions for triggering are derived from analysis of limit cycles, and regions of triggering are found in parametric space. Introduction of linear cross-coupling and quadratic self-coupling among the acoustic modes appears to be how the nonlinear combustion response produces triggering to a stable limit cycle. Regions of initial conditions corresponding to stable pulses were found, suggesting that stability depends on initial phase angle and harmonic content, as well as the composite amplitude, of the pulse. Also, dependence of nonlinear stability upon system parameters is considered. The second part of this thesis presents research for a controller to improve the emissions of an incinerator afterburner. The developed controller was experimentally tested at the Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC), on a 50kW-scale model of an afterburner for Naval shipboard incinerator applications. Acoustic forcing of the combustor's reacting shear layer is used to control the formation of coherent vortical structures, within which favorable fuel-air mixing and efficient combustion can occur. Laser-based measurements of CO emissions are used as the performance indicator for the combustor. The controller algorithm is based on the downhill simplex method and adjusts the shear layer forcing parameters in order to minimize the CO emissions. The downhill simplex method was analyzed with respect to its behavior in the face of time-variation of the plant and noise in the sensor signal, and was modified to account for these difficulties. The control system has experimentally demonstrated the ability (1) to find optimal control action for single- and multi-variable control, (2

Addition of nanoscale particulates to liquid hydrocarbon fuels is suggested to have numerous benefits for combustion systems, although aggregation of metal nanoparticles can produce deleterious effects. The present experiments explore the effect of nano Aluminum (nAl) additives on the combustion of single liquid fuel droplets, with and without exposure of the droplets to standing acoustic waves. Building on prior studies, the present experiments quantify variations in the burning rate constant K for ethanol droplets with increasing concentrations of nAl in a quiescent environment. Burning fuel droplets that are continuously fed via a capillary as well as suspended (non-fed) droplets are examined. Nano Al is observed to create ejections of both particles and vapor toward the end of the burning period for non-fed droplets; this phenomenon is delayed when the droplet is replenished via continuous fuel delivery. Yet for the majority of conditions explored, increasing concentrations of nAl tend to reduce K. When ethanol droplets with nAl are exposed to standing waves, acoustic perturbations appear to delay particulate agglomeration, sustaining combustion for a longer period of time and increasing K. Supported by AFOSR Grant FA9550-15-1-0339.

Combustioninstability, where unsteady heat release couples with acoustic modes, has long been an area of concern in liquid rocket engines. Accurate modeling of the acoustic normal modes of the combustion chamber is important to understanding and preventing combustioninstability. The injector resistance can have a significant influence on the chamber normal mode shape, and hence on the system stability.

Research & Development Center The technical objectives of the program are: * Study active control of combustioninstability in a laboratory scale ...Center The most significant accomplishments for this year are as follows: 1. Modified an existing laboratory scale premixed gas combustor to obtain...program are: " Study active control of combustioninstability in a laboratory scale combustor based on fuel flow modulation or an alternative practical

This paper provides preliminary results of the study of the acoustic radiation from the source model representing spatially-growing instability waves in a round jet at high speeds. The source model is briefly discussed first followed by the analysis of the produced acoustic directivity pattern. Two integral surface techniques are discussed and compared for prediction of the jet acoustic radiation field.

We study the linear stability of compressional waves in a medium through which cosmic rays stream at the Alfven speed due to strong coupling with Alfven waves. Acoustic waves can be driven unstable by the cosmic-ray drift, provided that the streaming speed is sufficiently large compared to the thermal sound speed. Two effects can cause instability: (1) the heating of the thermal gas due to the damping of Alfven waves driven unstable by cosmic-ray streaming; and (2) phase shifts in the cosmic-ray pressure perturbation caused by the combination of cosmic-ray streaming and diffusion. The instability does not depend on the magnitude of the background cosmic-ray pressure gradient, and occurs whether or not cosmic-ray diffusion is important relative to streaming. When the cosmic-ray pressure is small compared to the gas pressure, or cosmic-ray diffusion is strong, the instability manifests itself as a weak overstability of slow magnetosonic waves. Larger cosmic-ray pressure gives rise to new hybrid modes, which can be strongly unstable in the limits of both weak and strong cosmic-ray diffusion and in the presence of thermal conduction. Parts of our analysis parallel earlier work by McKenzie & Webb (which were brought to our attention after this paper was accepted for publication), but our treatment of diffusive effects, thermal conduction, and nonlinearities represent significant extensions. Although the linear growth rate of instability is independent of the background cosmic-ray pressure gradient, the onset of nonlinear eff ects does depend on absolute value of DEL (vector differential operator) Pc. At the onset of nonlinearity the fractional amplitude of cosmic-ray pressure perturbations is delta PC/PC approximately (kL) -1 much less than 1, where k is the wavenumber and L is the pressure scale height of the unperturbed cosmic rays. We speculate that the instability may lead to a mode of cosmic-ray transport in which plateaus of uniform cosmic-ray pressure are

We study the linear stability of compressional waves in a medium through which cosmic rays stream at the Alfven speed due to strong coupling with Alfven waves. Acoustic waves can be driven unstable by the cosmic-ray drift, provided that the streaming speed is sufficiently large compared to the thermal sound speed. Two effects can cause instability: (1) the heating of the thermal gas due to the damping of Alfven waves driven unstable by cosmic-ray streaming; and (2) phase shifts in the cosmic-ray pressure perturbation caused by the combination of cosmic-ray streaming and diffusion. The instability does not depend on the magnitude of the background cosmic-ray pressure gradient, and occurs whether or not cosmic-ray diffusion is important relative to streaming. When the cosmic-ray pressure is small compared to the gas pressure, or cosmic-ray diffusion is strong, the instability manifests itself as a weak overstability of slow magnetosonic waves. Larger cosmic-ray pressure gives rise to new hybrid modes, which can be strongly unstable in the limits of both weak and strong cosmic-ray diffusion and in the presence of thermal conduction. Parts of our analysis parallel earlier work by McKenzie & Webb (which were brought to our attention after this paper was accepted for publication), but our treatment of diffusive effects, thermal conduction, and nonlinearities represent significant extensions. Although the linear growth rate of instability is independent of the background cosmic-ray pressure gradient, the onset of nonlinear eff ects does depend on absolute value of DEL (vector differential operator) P(sub c). At the onset of nonlinearity the fractional amplitude of cosmic-ray pressure perturbations is delta P(sub C)/P(sub C) approximately (kL) (exp -1) much less than 1, where k is the wavenumber and L is the pressure scale height of the unperturbed cosmic rays. We speculate that the instability may lead to a mode of cosmic-ray transport in which plateaus of uniform cosmic

The Fluids and Combustion Facility (FCF) is a dual-rack microgravity research facility that is being developed by Northrop Grumman Information Technology (NGIT) for the International Space Station (ISS) at the NASA Glenn Research Center. As an on-orbit test bed, FCF will host a succession of experiments in fluid and combustion physics. The Fluids Integrated Rack (FIR) and the Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) must meet ISS acoustic emission requirements (ref. 1), which support speech communication and hearing-loss-prevention goals for ISS crew. To meet these requirements, the NGIT acoustics team implemented an aggressive low-noise design effort that incorporated frequent acoustic emission testing for all internal noise sources, larger-scale systems, and fully integrated racks (ref. 2). Glenn's Acoustical Testing Laboratory (ref. 3) provided acoustical testing services (see the following photograph) as well as specialized acoustical engineering support as part of the low-noise design process (ref. 4).

The nonlinear growth and limiting amplitude of acoustic waves in a combustion chamber are considered. A formal framework is provided within which practical problems can be treated with a minimum of effort and expense. The general conservation equations were expanded in two small parameters, one characterizing the mean flow field and one measuring the amplitude of oscillations, and then combined to yield a nonlinear inhomogeneous wave equation. The unsteady pressure and velocity fields were expressed as syntheses of the normal modes of the chamber, but with unknown time-varying amplitudes. This procedure yielded a representation of a general unsteady field as a system of coupled nonlinear oscillators. The system of nonlinear equations was treated by the method of averaging to produce a set of coupled nonlinear first order differential equations for the amplitudes and phases of the modes. The analysis is applicable to any combustion chamber. The most interesting applications are probably to solid rockets, liquid rockets, or thrust augmentors on jet engines.

Results of experimental measurements of low-frequency combustioninstability of a 300-pound thrust acid-heptane rocket engine were compared to the trends predicted by an analysis of combustioninstability in a rocket engine with a pressurized-gas propellant pumping system. The simplified analysis, which assumes a monopropellant model, was based on the concept of a combustion the delay occurring from the moment of propellant injection to the moment of propellant combustion. This combustion time delay was experimentally measured; the experimental values were of approximately half the magnitude predicted by the analysis. The pressure-fluctuation frequency for a rocket engine with a characteristic length of 100 inches and operated at a combustion-chamber pressure of 280 pounds per square inch absolute was 38 cycles per second; the analysis indicated. a frequency of 37 cycles per second. Increasing combustion-chamber characteristic length decreased the pressure-fluctuation frequency, in conformity to the analysis. Increasing the chamber operating pressure or increasing the injector pressure drop increased the frequency. These latter two effects are contrary to the analysis; the discrepancies are attributed to the conflict between the assumptions made to simplify the analysis and the experimental conditions. Oxidant-fuel ratio had no apparent effect on the experimentally measured pressure-fluctuation frequency for acid-heptane ratios from 3.0 to 7.0. The frequencies decreased with increased amplitude of the combustion-chamber pressure variations. The analysis indicated that if the combustion time delay were sufficiently short, low-frequency combustioninstability would be eliminated.

The development of an analytical technique used in the solution of nonlinear velocity-sensitive combustioninstability problems is presented. The Galerkin method was used and proved successful. The pressure wave forms exhibit a strong second harmonic distortion and a variety of behaviors are possible depending on the nature of the combustion process and the parametric values involved. A one dimensional model provides insight into the problem by allowing a comparison of Galerkin solutions with more exact finite difference computations.

Review of the current state of analyses of combustioninstability in solid-propellant rocket motors, citing appropriate measurements and observations. The work discussed has become increasingly important, both for the interpretation of laboratory data and for predicting the transient behavior of disturbances in full-scale motors. Two central questions are considered - namely, linear stability and nonlinear behavior. Several classes of problems are discussed as special cases of a general approach to the analysis of combustioninstability. Application to motors, and particularly the limitations presently understood, are stressed.

We theoretically and numerically study the bifurcation phenomena of nonlinear dynamical system describing combustioninstability in a pulse model combustor on the basis of dynamical system theory and complex network theory. The dynamical behavior of pressure fluctuations undergoes a significant transition from steady-state to deterministic chaos via the period-doubling cascade process known as Feigenbaum scenario with decreasing the characteristic flow time. Recurrence plots and recurrence networks analysis we adopted in this study can quantify the significant changes in dynamic behavior of combustioninstability that cannot be captured in the bifurcation diagram.

change between 1.2 and 2.11 is the addition of nitrogen chemistry and the present simulations do not contain nitrogen .12 While version 3.0 should produce...results in a more continuous heat release throughout the acoustic cycle and less opportunity for coupling with the chamber acoustics, leading in turn...by a ramp-up before reaching the limit cycle . The detailed chemistry exhibits a smooth decay in amplitude from the ignition spike to the final limit

We present an instability for exciting incompressible modes (e.g., gravity or Rossby modes) at the surface of a star accreting through a boundary layer. The instability excites a stellar mode by sourcing an acoustic wave in the disk at the boundary layer, which carries a flux of energy and angular momentum with the opposite sign as the energy and angular momentum density of the stellar mode. We call this instability the acoustic Chandrasekhar–Friedman–Schutz (CFS) instability, because of the direct analogy to the CFS instability for exciting modes on a rotating star by emission of energy in the form of gravitational waves. However, the acoustic CFS instability differs from its gravitational wave counterpart in that the fluid medium in which the acoustic wave propagates (i.e., the accretion disk) typically rotates faster than the star in which the incompressible mode is sourced. For this reason, the instability can operate even for a non-rotating star in the presence of an accretion disk. We discuss applications of our results to high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations in accreting black hole and neutron star systems and dwarf nova oscillations in cataclysmic variables.

Spark-ignited internal combustion engines have evolved considerably in recent years in response to increasingly stringent regulations for emissions and fuel economy. One new advanced engine strategy ustilizes high levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) to reduce combustion temperatures, thereby increasing thermodynamic efficiency and reducing nitrogen oxide emissions. While this strategy can be highly effective, it also poses major control and design challenges due to the large combustion oscillations that develop at sufficiently high EGR levels. Previous research has documented that combustioninstabilities can propagate between successive engine cycles in individual cylinders via self-generated feedback of reactive species and thermal energy in the retained residual exhaust gases. In this work, we use symbolic analysis to characterize multi-cylinder combustion oscillations in an experimental engine operating with external EGR. At low levels of EGR, intra-cylinder oscillations are clearly visible and appear to be associated with brief, intermittent coupling among cylinders. As EGR is increased further, a point is reached where all four cylinders lock almost completely in phase and alternate simultaneously between two distinct bi-stable combustion states. From a practical perspective, it is important to understand the causes of this phenomenon and develop diagnostics that might be applied to ameliorate its effects. We demonstrate here that two approaches for symbolizing the engine combustion measurements can provide useful probes for characterizing these instabilities.

Spark-ignited internal combustion engines have evolved considerably in recent years in response to increasingly stringent regulations for emissions and fuel-economy. One new advanced engine strategy utilizes high levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) to reduce combustion temperatures, thereby increasing thermodynamic efficiency and reducing nitrogen oxide emissions. While this strategy can be highly effective, it also poses major control and design challenges due to the large combustion oscillations that develop at sufficiently high EGR levels. Previous research has documented that combustioninstabilities can propagate between successive engine cycles in individual cylinders via self-generated feedback of reactive species and thermal energy in the retained residual exhaust gases. In this work, we use symbolic analysis to characterize multi-cylinder combustion oscillations in an experimental engine operating with external EGR. At low levels of EGR, intra-cylinder oscillations are clearly visible and appear to be associated with brief, intermittent coupling among cylinders. As EGR is increased further, a point is reached where all four cylinders lock almost completely in phase and alternate simultaneously between two distinct bi-stable combustion states. From a practical perspective, it is important to understand the causes of this phenomenon and develop diagnostics that might be applied to ameliorate its effects. We demonstrate here that two approaches for symbolizing the engine combustion measurements can provide useful probes for characterizing these instabilities.

Spark-ignited internal combustion engines have evolved considerably in recent years in response to increasingly stringent regulations for emissions and fuel-economy. One new advanced engine strategy utilizes high levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) to reduce combustion temperatures, thereby increasing thermodynamic efficiency and reducing nitrogen oxide emissions. While this strategy can be highly effective, it also poses major control and design challenges due to the large combustion oscillations that develop at sufficiently high EGR levels. Previous research has documented that combustioninstabilities can propagate between successive engine cycles in individual cylinders via self-generated feedback of reactive species and thermal energy inmore » the retained residual exhaust gases. In this work, we use symbolic analysis to characterize multi-cylinder combustion oscillations in an experimental engine operating with external EGR. At low levels of EGR, intra-cylinder oscillations are clearly visible and appear to be associated with brief, intermittent coupling among cylinders. As EGR is increased further, a point is reached where all four cylinders lock almost completely in phase and alternate simultaneously between two distinct bi-stable combustion states. From a practical perspective, it is important to understand the causes of this phenomenon and develop diagnostics that might be applied to ameliorate its effects. We demonstrate here that two approaches for symbolizing the engine combustion measurements can provide useful probes for characterizing these instabilities.« less

Model-based algorithms are generally employed in active control of combustion oscillations. Since practical combustion processes consist of complex thermal and acoustic couplings, their accurate models and parameters may not be obtained in advance economically, a model free controller is necessary for the control of thermoacoustic instabilities. Active compensation based control algorithm is applied in the suppression of combustioninstabilities. Tuning the controller parameters on line, the amplitudes of the acoustic waves can be modulated to desired values. Simulations performed on a control oriented, typical longitudinal oscillations combustor model illustrate the controllers' capability to attenuate combustion oscillations.

The cycling combustioninstabilities in a diesel engine have been analyzed based on chaos theory. The objective was to investigate the dynamical characteristics of combustion in diesel engine. In this study, experiments were performed under the entire operating range of a diesel engine (the engine speed was changed from 600 to 1400 rpm and the engine load rate was from 0% to 100%), and acquired real-time series of in-cylinder combustion pressure using a piezoelectric transducer installed on the cylinder head. Several methods were applied to identify and quantitatively analyze the combustion process complexity in the diesel engine including delay-coordinate embedding, recurrence plot (RP), Recurrence Quantification Analysis, correlation dimension (CD), and the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) estimation. The results show that the combustion process exhibits some determinism. If LLE is positive, then the combustion system has a fractal dimension and CD is no more than 1.6 and within the diesel engine operating range. We have concluded that the combustion system of diesel engine is a low-dimensional chaotic system and the maximum values of CD and LLE occur at the lowest engine speed and load. This means that combustion system is more complex and sensitive to initial conditions and that poor combustion quality leads to the decrease of fuel economy and the increase of exhaust emissions.

The cycling combustioninstabilities in a diesel engine have been analyzed based on chaos theory. The objective was to investigate the dynamical characteristics of combustion in diesel engine. In this study, experiments were performed under the entire operating range of a diesel engine (the engine speed was changed from 600 to 1400 rpm and the engine load rate was from 0% to 100%), and acquired real-time series of in-cylinder combustion pressure using a piezoelectric transducer installed on the cylinder head. Several methods were applied to identify and quantitatively analyze the combustion process complexity in the diesel engine including delay-coordinate embedding, recurrence plot (RP), Recurrence Quantification Analysis, correlation dimension (CD), and the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) estimation. The results show that the combustion process exhibits some determinism. If LLE is positive, then the combustion system has a fractal dimension and CD is no more than 1.6 and within the diesel engine operating range. We have concluded that the combustion system of diesel engine is a low-dimensional chaotic system and the maximum values of CD and LLE occur at the lowest engine speed and load. This means that combustion system is more complex and sensitive to initial conditions and that poor combustion quality leads to the decrease of fuel economy and the increase of exhaust emissions.

The ion acoustic beam-plasma instability is known to excite strong solitary waves near the Earth's bow shock. Using a double plasma experiment, tightly coupled with a 1-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation, the results presented here show that this instability is critically sensitive to the experimental conditions. Boundary effects, which do not have any counterpart in space or in most simulations, unavoidably excite parasitic instabilities. Potential fluctuations from these instabilities lead to an increase of the beam temperature which reduces the growth rate such that non-linear effects leading to solitary waves are less likely to be observed. Furthermore, the increased temperature modifies the range of beam velocities for which an ion acoustic beam plasma instability is observed.

A synergistic hierarchy of analytical and computational fluid dynamic techniques is used to analyze three-dimensional combustioninstabilities in liquid rocket engines. A mixed finite difference/spectral procedure is employed to study the effects of a distributed vaporization zone on standing and spinning instability modes within the chamber. Droplet atomization and vaporization are treated by a variety of classical models found in the literature. A multi-zone, linearized analytical solution is used to validate the accuracy of the numerical simulations at small amplitudes for a distributed vaporization region. This comparison indicates excellent amplitude and phase agreement under both stable and unstable operating conditions when amplitudes are small and proper grid resolution is used. As amplitudes get larger, expected nonlinearities are observed. The effect of liquid droplet temperature fluctuations was found to be of critical importance in driving the instabilities of the combustion chamber.

This paper describes ongoing testing of an adaptive control method to suppress high frequency thermo-acousticinstabilities like those found in lean-burning, low emission combustors that are being developed for future aircraft gas turbine engines. The method called Adaptive Sliding Phasor Averaged Control, was previously tested in an experimental rig designed to simulate a combustor with an instability of about 530 Hz. Results published earlier, and briefly presented here, demonstrated that this method was effective in suppressing the instability. Because this test rig did not exhibit a well pronounced instability, a question remained regarding the effectiveness of the control methodology when applied to a more coherent instability. To answer this question, a modified combustor rig was assembled at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The modified rig exhibited a more coherent, higher amplitude instability, but at a lower frequency of about 315 Hz. Test results show that this control method successfully reduced the instability pressure of the lower frequency test rig. In addition, due to a certain phenomena discovered and reported earlier, the so called Intra-Harmonic Coupling, a dramatic suppression of the instability was achieved by focusing control on the second harmonic of the instability. These results and their implications are discussed, as well as a hypothesis describing the mechanism of intra-harmonic coupling.

In this work, tuned passive control is used to damp unstable combustion systems, with particular emphasis on systems which exhibit multiple unstable modes. Helmholtz resonators are used as passive dampers. The frequency at which they offer maximum damping is varied by altering their geometry; in this work, geometry changes are achieved by varying the area of the Helmholtz resonator neck. For each unstable mode exhibited by the combustion system, a separate Helmholtz resonator has its neck area tuned. Two algorithms are developed, one for identifying the characteristics of all modes present in real time, and another for tuning the neck areas of the Helmholtz resonators. These algorithms are successfully implemented in numerical simulations of a longitudinal combustor exhibiting two unstable modes. The algorithms result in both modes being stabilised as long as two Helmholtz resonators are used. Experiments are then conducted on a Rijke tube with its upper part split into two branches of differing lengths, shaped like a 'Y'. The differing lengths give rise to two unstable modes at different frequencies. A Helmholtz resonator is attached to each branch; the neck area of both can be varied by means of an 'iris' valve, which opens and closes like a camera lens. On implementing the procedure for tuning the neck areas, both unstable modes are stabilised, and stability is maintained for large changes in operating condition. This confirms that the procedure developed is sufficiently robust for use in real combustion systems exhibiting multiple unstable modes.

acoustic cycle . All three post-length cases are studied and attention is paid to discerning the specific modes of coupling that lead to the incidence...downstream end of the combustor is chosen for its reduced susceptibility to local variations and ability to capture limit cycle behavior. An overall...chemical kinetics show limit cycle behavior in all the cases shown. The pressure signals from the global-1 simulations show more noise compared to the GRI

Active control of high-frequency (greater than 500 Hz) combustioninstability has been demonstrated in the NASA single-nozzle combustor rig at United Technologies Research Center. The combustor rig emulates an actual engine instability and has many of the complexities of a real engine combustor (i.e. actual fuel nozzle and swirler, dilution cooling, etc.) In order to demonstrate control, a high-frequency fuel valve capable of modulating the fuel flow at up to 1kHz was developed. Characterization of the fuel delivery system was accomplished in a custom dynamic flow rig developed for that purpose. Two instability control methods, one model-based and one based on adaptive phase-shifting, were developed and evaluated against reduced order models and a Sectored-1-dimensional model of the combustor rig. Open-loop fuel modulation testing in the rig demonstrated sufficient fuel modulation authority to proceed with closed-loop testing. During closed-loop testing, both control methods were able to identify the instability from the background noise and were shown to reduce the pressure oscillations at the instability frequency by 30%. This is the first known successful demonstration of high-frequency combustioninstability suppression in a realistic aero-engine environment. Future plans are to carry these technologies forward to demonstration on an advanced low-emission combustor.

High-speed water jet cutting has important industrial applications. To further improve the cutting performance it is critical to understand the theory behind the onset of instability of the jet. In this paper, instability of a water jet flowing out from a nozzle into ambient air is studied. Capillary forces and compressibility of the liquid caused by gas bubbles are taken into account, since these factors have shown to be important in previous experimental studies. A new dispersion equation, generalizing the analogous Rayleigh equation, is derived. It is shown how instability develops because of aerodynamic forces that appear at the streamlining of an initial irregularity of the equilibrium shape of the cross-section of the jet and how instability increases with increased concentration of gas bubbles. It is also shown how resonance phenomena are responsible for strong instability. On the basis of the theoretical explanations given, conditions for stable operation are indicated.

The acoustics of combustion chambers and the interaction of acoustics and combustion is investigated in a model combustor operated with LOX/H2 and LOX/CH4. Acoustic excitations are induced by a siren during hot fire tests and the response of atomization and combustion is recorded with dynamic pressure sensors and high speed OH-imaging is applied. By analyzing the temporal and spatial distribution of the flame response the question is addressed, whether in the experiments the coupling of acoustics to combustion is via pressure or velocity sensitive processes. In the experiments it appeared that the acoustic eigenmodes of the combustor are characteristically deviating from cylinder modes. The results obtained can be explained by a modal analyses of the combustor geometry. These investigations have been extended to study the influence of absorbers and absorber rings on the acoustics of combustion chambers and resonance frequencies predicted by modal analysis and experimental results are presented.

Hydrodynamic (Landau) instability in combustion is typically associated with the onset of wrinkling of a flame surface, corresponding to the formation of steady cellular structures as the stability threshold is crossed. In the context of liquid-propellant combustion, such instability has recently been shown to occur for critical values of the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and the disturbance wavenumber, significantly generalizing previous classical results for this problem that assumed a constant normal burning rate. Additionally, however, a pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has been shown to occur as well, corresponding to the onset of temporal oscillations in the location of the liquid/gas interface. In the present work, we consider the realistic influence of a nonzero temperature sensitivity in the local burning rate on both types of stability thresholds. It is found that for sufficiently small values of this parameter, there exists a stable range of pressure sensitivities for steady, planar burning such that the classical cellular form of hydrodynamic instability and the more recent pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability can each occur as the corresponding stability threshold is crossed. For larger thermal sensitivities, however, the pulsating stability boundary evolves into a C-shaped curve in the disturbance-wavenumber/ pressure-sensitivity plane, indicating loss of stability to pulsating perturbations for all sufficiently large disturbance wavelengths. It is thus concluded, based on characteristic parameter values, that an equally likely form of hydrodynamic instability in liquid-propellant combustion is of a nonsteady, long-wave nature, distinct from the steady, cellular form originally predicted by Landau.

A plasma double layer (DL) is a nonlinear electrostatic structure that carries a uni-polar electric field parallel to the background magnetic field due to local charge separation. Past studies showed that DLs observed in space plasmas are mostly associated with the ion acousticinstability. Recent Van Allen Probes observations of parallel electric field structures traveling much faster than the ion acoustic speed have motivated a computational study to test the hypothesis that a new type of DLs—electron acoustic DLs—generated from the electron acousticinstability are responsible for these electric fields. Nonlinear particle-in-cell simulations yield negative results, i.e., the hypothetical electron acoustic DLs cannot be formed in a way similar to ion acoustic DLs. Linear theory analysis and the simulations show that the frequencies of electron acoustic waves are too high for ions to respond and maintain charge separation required by DLs. However, our results do show that local density perturbations in a two-electron-component plasma can result in unipolar-like electric field structures that propagate at the electron thermal speed, suggesting another potential explanation for the observations.

Westbrook and F. L. Dryer, "Simplified Reaction -Mechanisms for the Oxidation of Hydrocarbon Fudels in Flames," Combustion Science and Technology, vol...is also studied in order to understand the change of flow characteristics due to chemical reactions and longitudinal acoustics. The major mode shapes...density, velocity vector and pressure respectively; h0 is the stagnation enthalpy and Y is a species mass fraction vector; K represents the turbulence

A high accuracy convection scheme using a sequential solution technique has been developed and applied to simulate the longitudinal combustioninstability and its active control. The scheme has been devised in the spirit of the Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) concept with special source term treatment. Due to the substantial heat release effect, a clear delineation of the key elements employed by the scheme, i.e., the adjustable damping factor and the source term treatment has been made. By comparing with the first-order upwind scheme previously utilized, the present results exhibit less damping and are free from spurious oscillations, offering improved quantitative accuracy while confirming the spectral analysis reported earlier. A simple feedback type of active control has been found to be capable of enhancing or attenuating the magnitude of the combustioninstability.

A transient model of a hybrid motor was formulated to study the cause and elimination of nonacoustic combustioninstability. The transient model was used to simulate four key tests out of a series of seventeen hybrid motor tests conducted by Thiokol, Rocketdyne, and Martin Marietta at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). These tests were performed under the Hybrid Propulsion Technology for Launch Vehicle Boosters (HPTLVB) program. The first test resulted in stable combustion. The second test resulted in large-amplitude, 6.5-Hz chamber pressure oscillations that gradually damped away by the end of the test. The third test resulted in large-amplitude, 7.5-Hz chamber pressure oscillations that were sustained throughout the test. The seventh test resulted in elimination of combustioninstability with the installation of an orifice immediately upstream of the injector. Formulation and implementation of the model are the scope of this presentation. The current model is an independent continuation of modeling presented previously by joint Thiokol-Rocketdyne collaborators Boardman, Hawkins, Wassom. and Claflin. The previous model simulated an unstable independent research and development (IR&D) hybrid motor test performed by Thiokol. There was very good agreement between the model and test data. Like the previous model, the current model was developed using Matrix-x simulation software. However, tests performed at MSFC under the HPTLVB program were actually simulated. ln the current model, the hybrid motor, consisting of the liquid oxygen (lox) injector, the multiport solid fuel grain, and nozzle, was simulated. The lox feedsystem, consisting of the tank, venturi. valve, and feed lines, was also simulated in the model. All components of the hybrid motor and lox feedsystem are treated by a lumped-parameter approach. Agreement between the results of the transient model and actual test data was very good. This agreement between simulated and actual test data indicated

Self-excited combustioninstabilities have been studied using a combination of two- and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. This work was undertaken to assess the ability of CFD simulations to generate the high-amplitude resonant combustion dynamics without external forcing or a combustion response function. Specifically, detached eddy simulations (DES), which allow for significantly coarser grid resolutions in wall bounded flows than traditional large eddy simulations (LES), were investigated for their capability of simulating the instability. A single-element laboratory rocket combustor which produces self-excited longitudinal instabilities is used for the configuration. The model rocket combustor uses an injector configuration based on practical oxidizer-rich staged-combustion devices; a sudden expansion combustion section; and uses decomposed hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizer and gaseous methane as the fuel. A better understanding of the physics has been achieved using a series of diagnostics. Standard CFD outputs like instantaneous and time averaged flowfield outputs are combined with other tools, like the Rayleigh index to provide additional insight. The Rayleigh index is used to identify local regions in the combustor which are responsible for driving and damping the instability. By comparing the Rayleigh index to flowfield parameters it is possible to connect damping and driving to specific flowfield conditions. A cost effective procedure to compute multidimensional local Rayleigh index was developed. This work shows that combustioninstabilities can be qualitatively simulated using two-dimensional axisymmetric simulations for fuel rich operating conditions. A full three-dimensional simulation produces a higher level of instability which agrees quite well with the experimental results. In addition to matching the level of instability the three-dimensional simulation also predicts the harmonic nature of the instability that is

When a boundary-layer instability mode propagates through a region of rapid distortion, the ensuing scattering causes two consequences of physical interest. First, the amplitude of the instability mode may be suppressed or energized. Second, substantial sound wave can be radiated by the boundary-layer instability mode. This paper focuses on this issue by proposing a framework which is called Local Scattering Theory. In this framework, a transmission coefficient, defined as the ratio of the T-S wave amplitude downstream of the scatter to that upstream, is introduced to characterize the effect of a local scatter on boundary-layer instability and transition. The mathematical formulation is based on triple-deck formulism, but in order to accommodate the acoustic far field, the unsteady terms in the upper deck are retained. By computation, the impacts of a steady local suction on flow instability and acoustic radiation are studied. It is found that, (1) a suction slot would suppress the oncoming T-S wave; (2) the acoustic waves radiated by the scattering effect have similar directivities; (3) the intensity of the sound increases with the mass flux when the latter is not too large, and it also increases with the frequency monotonously.

The non-linear thin-shell instability (NTSI) may explain some of the turbulent hydrodynamic structures that are observed close to the collision boundary of energetic astrophysical outflows. It develops in non-planar shells that are bounded on either side by a hydrodynamic shock, provided that the amplitude of the seed oscillations is sufficiently large. The hydrodynamic NTSI has a microscopic counterpart in collisionless plasma. A sinusoidal displacement of a thin shell, which is formed by the collision of two clouds of unmagnetized electrons and protons, grows and saturates on time-scales of the order of the inverse proton plasma frequency. Here we increase the wavelength of the seed perturbation by a factor of 4 compared to that in a previous study. Like in the case of the hydrodynamic NTSI, the increase in the wavelength reduces the growth rate of the microscopic NTSI. The prolonged growth time of the microscopic NTSI allows the waves, which are driven by the competing ion acousticinstability, to grow to a large amplitude before the NTSI saturates and they disrupt the latter. The ion acousticinstability thus imposes a limit on the largest wavelength that can be destabilized by the NTSI in collisionless plasma. The limit can be overcome by binary collisions. We bring forward evidence for an overstability of the collisionless NTSI.

The ion acoustic beam instability is suggested as a mechanism to produce wave turbulence observed in the Venus mantle at frequencies 100 Hz and 730 Hz. The plasma is assumed to consist of a stationary cold O(+) ion plasma and a flowing, shocked solar wind plasma. The O(+) ions appear as a beam relative to the flowing ionosheath plasma which provides the free energy to drive the instability. The plasma is driven unstable by inverse electron Landau damping of an ion acoustic wave associated with the cold ionospheric O(+) ions. The instability can directly generate the observed 100 Hz waves in the Venus mantle as well as the observed 730 Hz waves through the Doppler shift of the frequency caused by the satellite motion.

We report on 3D high resolution numerical simulations of a non-premixed, reacting Richmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability performed using the FLASH code. In the simulations, a Mach 1.6 shock traverses a diffuse, corrugated material interface separating Hydrogen at 1000 K and Oxygen at 300 K, so that local misalignments between pressure and density gradients induce baroclinic vorticity at the contact line. The vorticity deposition drives the RM instability, which in turn results in combustion and flame formation. We study the evolution of the interface and the flame as the resulting RM instability grows through linear, nonlinear and turbulent stages. We develop a detailed understanding of the effects of heat release and combustion on the underlying flow properties by comparing our results with a baseline non-reacting RM flow. We document the properties of the instability (growth rates, pdfs, spectra) and the flame (scalar dissipation rate, flame surface area, heat release rate) as well as the nature of the coupling between the two. Our findings are relevant to supernovae detonation, knocking in IC engines and scramjet performance, while the underlying flow problem defined here represents a novel canonical framework to understand the broader class of non-premixed turbulent flames.

Combustioninstabilities arise owing to a two-way coupling between acoustic waves and unsteady heat release. Oscillation amplitudes successively grow, until nonlinear effects cause saturation into limit cycle oscillations. Feedback control, in which an actuator modifies some combustor input in response to a sensor measurement, can suppress combustioninstabilities. Linear feedback controllers are typically designed, using linear combustor models. However, when activated from within limit cycle, the linear model is invalid, and such controllers are not guaranteed to stabilize. This work develops a feedback control strategy guaranteed to stabilize from within limit cycle oscillations. A low-order model of a simple combustor, exhibiting the essential features of more complex systems, is presented. Linear plane acoustic wave modelling is combined with a weakly nonlinear describing function for the flame. The latter is determined numerically using a level set approach. Its implication is that the open-loop transfer function (OLTF) needed for controller design varies with oscillation level. The difference between the mean and the rest of the OLTFs is characterized using the ν-gap metric, providing the minimum required ‘robustness margin’ for an H∞ loop-shaping controller. Such controllers are designed and achieve stability both for linear fluctuations and from within limit cycle oscillations. PMID:27493558

Combustioninstability, which results from a coupling of the combustion process and the fluid dynamics of the engine system, was investigated. The design of devices which reduce coupling (combustion chamber baffles) and devices which increase damping (acoustic absorbers) are described. Included in the discussion are design criteria and recommended practices, structural and mechanical design, thermal control, baffle geometry, baffle/engine interactions, acoustic damping analysis, and absorber configurations.

Design criteria, methods and data, were developed to permit effective design of acoustic cavities for use in regeneratively cooled OME-type engines. This information was developed experimentally from two series of motor firings with high-temperature fuel during which the engine stability was evaluated under various conditions and with various cavity configurations. Supplementary analyses and acoustic model testing were used to aid cavity design and interpretation of results. Results from this program clearly indicate that dynamic stability in regeneratively cooled OME-type engines can be ensured through the use of acoustic cavities. Moreover, multiple modes of instability were successfully suppressed with the cavity.

The classical Landau/Levich models of liquid propellant combustion, which serve as seminal examples of hydrodynamic instability in reactive systems, have been combined and extended to account for a dynamic dependence, absent in the original formulations, of the local burning rate on the local pressure and/or temperature fields. The resulting model admits an extremely rich variety of both hydrodynamic and reactive/diffusive instabilities that can be analyzed in various limiting parameter regimes. In the present work, a formal asymptotic analysis, based on the realistic smallness of the gas-to-liquid density ratio, is developed to investigate the combined effects of gravity, surface tension and viscosity on the hydrodynamic instability of the propagating liquid/gas interface. In particular, a composite asymptotic expression, spanning three distinguished wavenumber regimes, is derived for both cellular and pulsating hydrodynamic neutral stability boundaries A(sub p)(k), where A(sub p) is the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and k is the disturbance wavenumber. For the case of cellular (Landau) instability, the results demonstrate explicitly the stabilizing effect of gravity on long-wave disturbances, the stabilizing effect of viscosity and surface tension on short-wave perturbations, and the instability associated with intermediate wavenumbers for critical negative values of A(sub p). In the limiting case of weak gravity, it is shown that cellular hydrodynamic instability in this context is a long-wave instability phenomenon, whereas at normal gravity, this instability is first manifested through O(l) wavenumber disturbances. It is also demonstrated that, in the large wavenumber regime, surface tension and both liquid and gas viscosity all produce comparable stabilizing effects in the large-wavenumber regime, thereby providing significant modifications to previous analyses of Landau instability in which one or more of these effects were neglected. In contrast

In this paper, an experimental investigation was carried out on the combustion process of a compression ignition (CI) engine running with biodiesel blends under steady state operating conditions. The effects of biodiesel on the combustion process and engine dynamics were analysed for non-intrusive combustion diagnosis based on a four-cylinder, four-stroke, direct injection and turbocharged diesel engine. The signals of vibration, acoustic and in-cylinder pressure were measured simultaneously to find their inter-connection for diagnostic feature extraction. It was found that the sound energy level increases with the increase of engine load and speed, and the sound characteristics are closely correlated with the variation of in-cylinder pressure and combustion process. The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was employed to analyse the non-stationary nature of engine noise in a higher frequency range. Before the wavelet analysis, time synchronous average (TSA) was used to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the acoustic signal by suppressing the components which are asynchronous. Based on the root mean square (RMS) values of CWT coefficients, the effects of biodiesel fractions and operating conditions (speed and load) on combustion process and engine dynamics were investigated. The result leads to the potential of airborne acoustic measurements and analysis for engine condition monitoring and fuel quality evaluation.

The burning of liquid propellants is a fundamental combustion problem that is applicable to various types of propulsion and energetic systems. The deflagration process is often rather complex, with vaporization and pyrolysis occurring at the liquid/gas interface and distributed combustion occurring either in the gas phase or in a spray. Nonetheless, there are realistic limiting cases in which combustion may be approximated by an overall reaction at the liquid/gas interface. In one such limit, distributed combustion occurs in an intrusive regime, the reaction zone lying closer to the liquid/gas interface than the length scale of any disturbance of interest. Such limiting models have recently been formulated thereby significantly generalizing earlier classical models that were originally introduced to study the hydrodynamic stability of a reactive liquid/gas interface. In all of these investigations, gravity appears explicitly and plays a significant role, along with surface tension, viscosity, and, in the more recent models, certain reaction-rate parameters associated with the pressure and temperature sensitivities of the reaction itself. In particular, these parameters determine the stability of the deflagration with respect to not only classical hydrodynamic disturbances, but also with respect to reactive/diffusive influences as well. These instabilities thus lead to a number of interesting phenomena, such as the sloshing type of waves that have been observed in mixtures of HAN and triethanolammonium nitrate (TEAN) with water. Although the Froude number was treated as an O(l) quantity in these studies, the limit of small inverse Froude number corresponding to the microgravity regime is increasingly of interest. In the present work, the author formally exploits this limiting parameter regime to compare some of the features of hydrodynamic instability of liquid-propellant combustion at reduced gravity with the same phenomenon at normal gravity.

A pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has recently been shown to arise during the deflagration of liquid propellants in those parameter regimes where the pressure-dependent burning rate is characterized by a negative pressure sensitivity. This type of instability can coexist with the classical cellular, or Landau, form of hydrodynamic instability, with the occurrence of either dependent on whether the pressure sensitivity is sufficiently large or small in magnitude. For the inviscid problem, it has been shown that when the burning rate is realistically allowed to depend on temperature as well as pressure, that sufficiently large values of the temperature sensitivity relative to the pressure sensitivity causes the pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability to become dominant. In that regime, steady, planar burning becomes intrinsically unstable to pulsating disturbances whose wavenumbers are sufficiently small. In the present work, this analysis is extended to the fully viscous case, where it is shown that although viscosity is stabilizing for intermediate and larger wavenumber perturbations, the intrinsic pulsating instability for small wavenumbers remains. Under these conditions, liquid-propellant combustion is predicted to be characterized by large unsteady cells along the liquid/gas interface.

A pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has recently been shown to arise during liquid-propellant deflagration in those parameter regimes where the pressure-dependent burning rate is characterized by a negative pressure sensitivity. This type of instability can coexist with the classical cellular, or Landau form of hydrodynamic instability, with the occurrence of either dependent on whether the pressure sensitivity is sufficiently large or small in magnitude. For the inviscid problem, it has been shown that, when the burning rate is realistically allowed to depend on temperature as well as pressure, sufficiently large values of the temperature sensitivity relative to the pressure sensitivity causes like pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability to become dominant. In that regime, steady, planar burning becomes intrinsically unstable to pulsating disturbances whose wave numbers are sufficiently small. This analysis is extended to the fully viscous case, where it is shown that although viscosity is stabilizing for intermediate and larger wave number perturbations, the intrinsic pulsating instability for small wave numbers remains. Under these conditions, liquid-propellant combustion is predicted to be characterized by large unsteady cells along the liquid/gas interface.

For liquid-propellant combustion, the Landau/Levich hydrodynamic models have been combined and extended to account for a dynamic dependence of the burning rate on the local pressure and temperature fields. Analysis of these extended models is greatly facilitated by exploiting the realistic smallness of the gas-to-liquid density ratio rho. Neglecting thermal coupling effects, an asymptotic expression was then derived for the cellular stability boundary A(sub p)(k) where A(sub p) is the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and k is the disturbance wavenumber. The results explicitly indicate the stabilizing effects of gravity on long-wave disturbances, and those of viscosity and surface tension on short-wave perturbations, and the instability associated with intermediate wavenumbers for critical negative values of A(sub p). In the limit of weak gravity, hydrodynamic instability in liquid-propellant combustion becomes a long-wave, instability phenomenon, whereas at normal gravity, this instability is first manifested through O(1) wavenumbers. In addition, surface tension and viscosity (both liquid and gas) each produce comparable effects in the large-wavenumber regime, thereby providing important modifications to the previous analyses in which one or more of these effects was neglected. For A(sub p)= O, the Landau/Levich results are recovered in appropriate limiting cases, although this typically corresponds to a hydrodynamically unstable parameter regime for p << 1. In addition to the classical cellular form of hydrodynamic stability, there exists a pulsating form corresponding to the loss of stability of steady, planar burning to time-dependent perturbations. This occurs for negative values of the parameter A(sub p), and is thus absent from the original Landau/Levich models. In the extended model, however, there exists a stable band of negative pressure sensitivities bounded above by the Landau type of instability, and below by this pulsating form of hydrodynamic

In a gas which absorbs radiation an acoustic wave can be unstable. This instability is caused by the fact that the irradiant energy is absorbed preferentially in the high density region of the wave. If in the gas the chemical equilibrium AB {r reversible} A + B is maintained by photo dissociation balancing the reactions due to collisions, the instability increases. This is due to the density dependence of the reaction rate of the reverse reaction. It is argued that this process may explain the excitation or amplification of disturbances in the upper atmosphere.

A numerical analysis has been conducted for low-frequency combustioninstability in a model ramjet combustor. The facility is two-dimensional, and is comprised of a long inlet duct, a dump combustor chamber, and an exhaust nozzle. The experiments observed that the combustor pressure oscillation under the particular operating condition did not have much cycle-to-cycle variation. The main resonant frequency occurs at about 65 Hz for this case. In the numerical analysis, a time accurate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code with a pressure-correction algorithm is used, and the combustion process was modeled with a single step chemistry model and a modified eddy breakup model. A high-order upwind scheme with flux limiter is used for convection terms. The convergence of the linear algebraic equations is accelerated through a preconditioned conjugate gradient matrix solver. The numerical predictions show that the flame oscillates in the combustion chamber at the calculation condition and are justified by the experimental schlieren photographs. The numerical analyses correctly predict the chamber pressure oscillation frequency is over-predicted compared with the experimental data. The discrepancy can be explained by the simplified turbulence and combustion model used in this study, and the uncertainty of the inlet boundary conditions.

Our article reviews systematic research on combustioninstabilities (principally rare, random misfires and partial burns) in spray-guided stratified-charge (SGSC) engines operated at part load with highly stratified fuel -air -residual mixtures. Results from high-speed optical imaging diagnostics and numerical simulation provide a conceptual framework and quantify the sensitivity of ignition and flame propagation to strong, cyclically varying temporal and spatial gradients in the flow field and in the fuel -air -residual distribution. For SGSC engines using multi-hole injectors, spark stretching and locally rich ignition are beneficial. Moreover, combustioninstability is dominated by convective flow fluctuations that impede motion of the spark or flame kernel toward the bulk of the fuel, coupled with low flame speeds due to locally lean mixtures surrounding the kernel. In SGSC engines using outwardly opening piezo-electric injectors, ignition and early flame growth are strongly influenced by the spray's characteristic recirculation vortex. For both injection systems, the spray and the intake/compression-generated flow field influence each other. Factors underlying the benefits of multi-pulse injection are identified. Finally, some unresolved questions include (1) the extent to which piezo-SGSC misfires are caused by failure to form a flame kernel rather than by flame-kernel extinction (as in multi-hole SGSC engines); (2) the relative contributions of partially premixed flame propagation and mixing-controlled combustion under the exceptionally late-injection conditions that permit SGSC operation on E85-like fuels with very low NOx and soot emissions; and (3) the effects of flow-field variability on later combustion, where fuel-air-residual mixing within the piston bowl becomes important.

Measurement of times of flight of sound waves can be used to determine temperatures in a gas. This paper describes a system, based on this principle, that is capable of giving the temperature profile in a nonisothermal gas volume, for example, prevalent in a large furnace. The apparatus is simple, rugged, accurate, and capable of being automated for process control applications. It is basically an acoustic waveguide where the outside temperature profile is transferred to a chosen gas contained inside the guide.

which steady, planar burning is unstable to nonsteady, and/or nonplanar (cellular) modes of burning. These instabilities thus lead to a number of interesting phenomena, such as the sloshing type of waves that have been observed in mixtures of HAN and TriEthanolAmmonium Nitrate (TEAN) with water. Although the Froude number was treated as an O(1) quantity in these studies, the limit of small inverse Froude number corresponding to the microgravity regime is increasingly of interest and can be treated explicitly, leading to various limiting forms of the models, the neutral stability boundaries, and, ultimately, the evolution equations that govern the nonlinear dynamics of the propagating reaction front. In the present work, we formally exploit this limiting parameter regime to compare some of the features of hydrodynamic instability of liquid-propellant combustion at reduced gravity with the same phenomenon at normal gravity.

Three afterburner configurations were tested in a low-bypass-ratio turbofan engine to determine the effect of various fuel distributions, inlet conditions, flameholder geometry, and fuel injection location on combustioninstability. Tests were conducted at simulated flight conditions of Mach 0.75 and 1.3 at altitudes from 11,580 to 14,020 m (38,000 to 46,000 ft). In these tests combustioninstability with frequency from 28 to 90 Hz and peak-to-peak pressure amplitude up to 46.5 percent of the afterburner inlet total pressure level was encountered. Combustioninstability was suppressed in these tests by varying the fuel distribution in the afterburner.

Longitudinal low-frequency thermoacoustic unstable modes in combustion chambers have been intensively studied experimentally, numerically, and theoretically, leading to significant progress in both understanding and controlling these acoustic modes. However, modern annular gas turbines may also exhibit azimuthal modes, which are much less studied and feature specific mode structures and dynamic behaviors, leading to more complex situations. Moreover, dealing with 10-20 burners mounted in the same chamber limits the use of high fidelity simulations or annular experiments to investigate these modes because of their complexity and costs. Consequently, for such circumferential acoustic modes, theoretical tools have been developed to uncover underlying phenomena controlling their stability, nature, and dynamics. This review presents recent progress in this field. First, Galerkin and network models are described with their pros and cons in both the temporal and frequency framework. Then, key features of such acoustic modes are unveiled, focusing on their specificities such as symmetry breaking, non-linear modal coupling, forcing by turbulence. Finally, recent works on uncertainty quantifications, guided by theoretical studies and applied to annular combustors, are presented. The objective is to provide a global view of theoretical research on azimuthal modes to highlight their complexities and potential.

An extended Landau-Levich model of liquid-propellant combustion, one that allows for a local dependence of the burning rate on the (gas) pressure at the liquid-gas interface, exhibits not only the classical hydrodynamic cellular instability attributed to Landau but also a pulsating hydrodynamic instability associated with sufficiently negative pressure sensitivities. Exploiting the realistic limit of small values of the gas-to-liquid density ratio p, analytical formulas for both neutral stability boundaries may be obtained by expanding all quantities in appropriate powers of p in each of three distinguished wave-number regimes. In particular, composite analytical expressions are derived for the neutral stability boundaries A(sub p)(k), where A, is the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and k is the wave number of the disturbance. For the cellular boundary, the results demonstrate explicitly the stabilizing effect of gravity on long-wave disturbances, the stabilizing effect of viscosity (both liquid and gas) and surface tension on short-wave perturbations, and the instability associated with intermediate wave numbers for negative values of A(sub p), which is characteristic of many hydroxylammonium nitrate-based liquid propellants over certain pressure ranges. In contrast, the pulsating hydrodynamic stability boundary is insensitive to gravitational and surface-tension effects but is more sensitive to the effects of liquid viscosity because, for typical nonzero values of the latter, the pulsating boundary decreases to larger negative values of A(sub p) as k increases through O(l) values. Thus, liquid-propellant combustion is predicted to be stable (that is, steady and planar) only for a range of negative pressure sensitivities that lie below the cellular boundary that exists for sufficiently small negative values of A(sub p) and above the pulsating boundary that exists for larger negative values of this parameter.

We have examined the dynamics of self-excited thermoacoustic instability in a fundamentally and practically important gas-turbine model combustion system on the basis of complex network approaches. We have incorporated sophisticated complex networks consisting of cycle networks and phase space networks, neither of which has been considered in the areas of combustion physics and science. Pseudo-periodicity and high-dimensionality exist in the dynamics of thermoacoustic instability, including the possible presence of a clear power-law distribution and small-world-like nature.

The purpose of this study was to discover and assess student financial services delivered to students enrolled at East Tennessee State University. The research was undertaken for institutional self-improvement. The research explored changes that have occurred in student financial services in the dynamic higher education market. The research revealed universities pursued best practices for the delivery of student financial services through expanded employee knowledge, restructured organizations, and integrated information technologies. The research was conducted during October and November, 2006. The data were gathered from an online student survey of student financial services. The areas researched included: the Bursar office, the Financial Aid office, and online services. The results of the data analysis revealed problems with the students' perceived quality of existing financial services and the additional services students desire. The research focused on student perceptions of the quality of financial services by age and gender classifications and response categories. Although no statistically significant difference was found between the age-gender classifications on the perception of the quality of the financial services studied, the research adds to our understanding of student financial services at East Tennessee State University. Recommendation for continued research included annual surveys of segmented student populations that include ethnicity, age, gender, and educational level. The research would be used for continuous improvement efforts and student relationship management. Also additional research was recommended for employee learning in relation to the institution's mission, goals, and values.

An extended Landau/Levich model of liquid-propellant combustion, one that allows for a local dependence of the burning rate on the (gas) pressure at the liquid/gas interface, exhibits not only the classical hydrodynamic cellular instability attributed to Landau, but also a pulsating hydrodynamic instability associated with sufficiently negative pressure sensitivities. Exploiting the realistic limit of small values of the gas-to-liquid density ratio {rho}, analytical formulas for both neutral stability boundaries may be obtained by expanding all quantities in appropriate powers of {rho} in each of three distinguished wavenumber regimes. In particular, composite analytical expressions are derived for the neutral stability boundaries A{sub p}(k), where A{sub p} is the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and k is the wavenumber of the disturbance. For the cellular boundary, the results demonstrate explicitly the stabilizing effect of gravity on long-wave disturbances, the stabilizing effect of viscosity and surface tension on short-wave perturbations, and the instability associated with intermediate wavenumbers for negative values of A{sub p}, which is characteristic of many hydroxylammonium nitrate-based liquid propellants over certain pressure ranges. In contrast, the pulsating hydrodynamic stability boundary is insensitive to gravitational and surface-tension effects, but is more sensitive to the effects of liquid viscosity since, for typical nonzero values of the latter, the pulsating boundary decreases to larger negative values of A{sub p} as k increases through O(1) values.

This paper reports work on a nonpremixed half-dump combustor, in which methane is injected at the backward-facing step, and mixes and burns with the air flowing past the step in the unsteady recirculation zone. The flow and geometric parameters are widely varied, to gradually change from conditions of low-amplitude noise to excitation of high-amplitude discrete tones. The purpose of the work is to focus on the transition from the former condition to the latter, and to mark the onset of instability. Dimensionless groups such as the Helmholtz and Strouhal numbers are formed based on the observed dominant frequencies, whose variation with the air flow Reynolds number is used to identify the oscillations as those due to the natural acoustic modes or the vortex shedding process. High-speed chemiluminescence imaging reveals shedding of vortical structures in the flame zone. With variation in the conditions, flow-acoustic lock-on and transition from one vortex shedding mode to another is marked by nonlinearity in the corresponding amplitude variations. Such conditions are identified as the onset of instability in terms of the ratio of the flow time scale to the acoustic time scale and mapped against the operating fuel-air equivalence ratio of the combustor.

This 3-year research program was initiated in September, 1995, to investigate active control of detrimental combustioninstabilities in low NO{sub x} gas turbines (LNGT), which burn natural gas in a lean premixed mode to reduce NO{sub x} emissions. The program will investigate the mechanisms that drive these instabilities. Furthermore, it will study active control systems (ACS) that can effectively prevent the onset of such instabilities and/or reduce their amplitudes to acceptable levels. An understanding of the driving mechanisms will not only guide the development of effective ACS for LNGT but may also lead to combustor design changes (i.e., passive control) that will fully or partially resolve the problem. Initial attempts to stabilize combustors (i.e., chemical rockets) by ACS were reported more than 40 years ago, but were unsuccessful due to lack of adequate sensors, electronics, and actuators for performing the needed control actions. Progress made in recent years in sensor and actuator technology, electronics, and control theory has rekindled interest in developing ACS for unstable combustors. While initial efforts in this area, which focused on active control of instabilities in air breathing combustors, have demonstrated the considerable potential of active control, they have also indicated that more effective observers, controllers, and actuators are needed for practical applications. Considerable progress has been made in the observer and actuator areas by the principal investigators of this program during the past 2 years under an AFOSR program. The developed observer is based upon wavelets theory, and can identify the amplitudes, frequencies, and phases of the five most dominant combustor modes in (virtually) real time. The developed actuator is a fuel injector that uses a novel magneto-strictive material to modulate the fuel flow rate into the combustor.

This invention is a method of achieving stable, optimal mixtures of HCCI and SI in practical gasoline internal combustion engines comprising the steps of: characterizing the combustion process based on combustion process measurements, determining the ratio of conventional and HCCI combustion, determining the trajectory (sequence) of states for consecutive combustion processes, and determining subsequent combustion process modifications using said information to steer the engine combustion toward desired behavior.

A one-dimensional analytical model is presented for calculating the longitudinal acoustic modes of idealized dump-type ramjet engines. A plane flame was studied and incorporated into the combustor model where the flame is allowed to move or oscillate in the combustor. This provides three mechanisms of interaction at the flame sheet: agement to supply the necessary transparency and the ability to transmit data in a lazy fashion. Study of the test-bed system reveals that copy-on-reference address space transmission improves migration effectiveness (performance). Relocations occur up to a thousand times faster, with transfer times independent of process size. Since processes access a small portion of their memory in their lifetimes, the number of bytes transferred between machines drops by up to 96%. Message-handling cost are lowered by up to 94%, and are more evenly distributed across the remote execution. Implementation, instrumentation, and study of the test bed provides more useful information than is possible through a simulation.

The polarization force-induced changes in the dust-acoustic waves (DAWs) modulational instability (MI) are examined. Using the reductive perturbation method, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation that governs the MI of the DAWs is obtained. It is found that the effect of the polarization term R is to narrow the wave number domain for the onset of instability. The amplitude of the wave envelope decreases as R increases, meaning that the polarization force effects render weaker the associated DA rogue waves. The latter may therefore completely damp in the vicinity of R ˜ 1, i.e., as the polarization force becomes close to the electrostatic one (the net force acting on the dust particles becomes vanishingly small). The DA rogue wave profile is very sensitive to any change in the restoring force acting on the dust particles. It turns out that the polarization effects may completely smear out the DA rogue waves.

The basic features of obliquely propagating electron-acoustic (EA) solitary waves and their multidimensional instability in a magnetized plasma containing cold electrons, hot electrons obeying a vortexlike distribution, and stationary ions have been theoretically investigated by the reductive perturbation method and small-k perturbation expansion technique. The combined effects of external magnetic field (obliqueness) and trapped electron distribution, which are found to significantly modify the basic properties (amplitude and width) of small but finite-amplitude EA solitary waves, are explicitly examined. It is also found that the instability criterion and the growth rate are significantly modified by the external magnetic field and the propagation directions of both the nonlinear waves and their perturbation modes. The implications of our results in space plasmas are briefly discussed.

The polarization force-induced changes in the dust-acoustic waves (DAWs) modulational instability (MI) are examined. Using the reductive perturbation method, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation that governs the MI of the DAWs is obtained. It is found that the effect of the polarization term R is to narrow the wave number domain for the onset of instability. The amplitude of the wave envelope decreases as R increases, meaning that the polarization force effects render weaker the associated DA rogue waves. The latter may therefore completely damp in the vicinity of R ∼ 1, i.e., as the polarization force becomes close to the electrostatic one (the net force acting on the dust particles becomes vanishingly small). The DA rogue wave profile is very sensitive to any change in the restoring force acting on the dust particles. It turns out that the polarization effects may completely smear out the DA rogue waves.

Progress is reported on the modulational instability (MI) of ion-acoustic waves (IAWs) and dissipative rogue waves (RWs) in ultracold neutral plasmas (UNPs). The UNPs consist of inertial ions fluid and Maxwellian inertialess hot electrons, and the presence of an ion kinematic viscosity is allowed. For this purpose, a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) is derived and then solved analytically to show the occurrence of MI. It is found that the (in)stability regions of the wavepacks are dependent on time due to of the existence of the dissipative term. The existing regions of the MI of the IAWs are inventoried precisely. After that, we use a suitable transformation to convert the modified NLSE into the normal NLSE whose analytical solutions for rogue waves are known. The rogue wave propagation condition and its behavior are discussed. The impact of the relevant physical parameters on the profile of the RWs is examined.

A vertically orientated ultrasonic transducer contained within a closed cylindrical Pyrex tube was used to study the acoustic streaming flow within a cylindrical container. A particle-image velocimetry (PIV) system incorporating fluorescent 1.5 μm seeding particles suspended in a mixture of diethyl-phthalate and ethanol, whose optical index was matched to that of Pyrex, was used to allow for undistorted PIV imaging within the Pyrex tube. Temperature on the end-wall surface and acoustic pressure within the cylinder were measured for different end-wall materials. Variables considered included acoustic absorption and reflection coefficients, ultrasound intensity, container height, and thermal properties of the end-wall material. It was observed that a quasi-steady flow field driven by acoustic streaming is rapidly established within the container, which is typically dominated by a stationary vortex ring with downward flow along the ring axis. After sufficient time this quasi-stationary flow exhibits a thermal instability causing it to transform into a secondary flow state. Different types of secondary flow states were observed, including cases where the flow along the cylinder axis is oriented upward toward the ultrasound transducer and cases where the axial flow changes directions along the cylinder axis.

Cylindrical and spherical amplitude modulations of dust acoustic (DA) solitary wave envelopes in a strongly coupled dusty plasma containing nonthermal distributed ions are studied. Employing a reductive perturbation technique, a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation including the geometrical effect is derived. The influences of nonthermal ions, polarization force, and the geometries on the modulational instability conditions are analyzed and the possible rogue wave structures are discussed in detail. It is found that the spherical DA waves are more structurally stable to perturbations than the cylindrical ones. Possible applications of these theoretical findings are briefly discussed.

Cylindrical and spherical amplitude modulations of dust acoustic (DA) solitary wave envelopes in a strongly coupled dusty plasma containing nonthermal distributed ions are studied. Employing a reductive perturbation technique, a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation including the geometrical effect is derived. The influences of nonthermal ions, polarization force, and the geometries on the modulational instability conditions are analyzed and the possible rogue wave structures are discussed in detail. It is found that the spherical DA waves are more structurally stable to perturbations than the cylindrical ones. Possible applications of these theoretical findings are briefly discussed.

An analytical technique for the prediction of the effects of rigid baffles on the stability of liquid propellant combustors is presented. This analysis employs both two and three dimensional combustor models characterized by concentrated combustion sources at the chamber injector and a constant Mach number nozzle. An eigenfunction-matching method is used to solve the linearized partial differential equations describing the unsteady flow field for both models. Boundary layer corrections to this unsteady flow are in a mechanical energy dissipation model to evaluate viscous and turbulence effects within the flow. An integral instability relationship is then employed to predict the decay rate of the oscillations. Results of this analysis agree qualitatively with experimental observations and show that sufficient dissipation exists to indicate that the proper mechanism of baffle damping is a fluid dynamic loss. The response of the dissipation model to varying baffle blade length, mean flow Mach number, oscillation amplitude, baffle configuration, and oscillation mode is examined.

A rigorous theoretical investigation has been made on Zakharov-Kuznetsov (ZK) equation of ion-acoustic (IA) solitary waves (SWs) and their multi-dimensional instability in a magnetized degenerate plasma which consists of inertialess electrons, inertial ions, negatively, and positively charged stationary heavy ions. The ZK equation is derived by the reductive perturbation method, and multi-dimensional instability of these solitary structures is also studied by the small-k (long wave-length plane wave) perturbation expansion technique. The effects of the external magnetic field are found to significantly modify the basic properties of small but finite-amplitude IA SWs. The external magnetic field and the propagation directions of both the nonlinear waves and their perturbation modes are found to play a very important role in changing the instability criterion and the growth rate of the unstable IA SWs. The basic features (viz., amplitude, width, instability, etc.) and the underlying physics of the IA SWs, which are relevant to space and laboratory plasma situations, are briefly discussed.

We present quantitative measurements of parametric wave-wave coupling rates and decay instabilities in the range 10 meV acoustic dispersion ω(kz) kz - α kz3, discretized by the axial wave number kz = mz(π /Lp) . The parametric coupling rates are measured between mz = 2 waves with large amplitude δn2/n0, and small amplitude mz = 1 waves, which have a small frequency detuning Δω = 2ω1 -ω2 . On cold plasmas, the parametric coupling rates Γ (δn2/n0) are consistent with cold fluid, 3-wave instability theory, and the decay instability occurs when Γ > Δω /2. In contrast, at higher temperatures, the mz = 2 wave is more unstable. The instability threshold is reduced from the cold fluid prediction as the plasma temperature is increased, which is in qualitative agreement with Vlasov simulations, but is not yet understood theoretically. Supported by DOE/HEDLP Grant DE-SC0008693 and DOE Fusion Energy Science Postdoctoral Research Program administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

Streaming dust acousticinstabilities in the presence of a dust beam in a weakly non-ideal dusty plasma have been studied considering a new form for the state equation with two kind of grains. Fluctuating charging effects are not considered in this work. Homogeneous dust-acoustic waves (DAWS) are studied for a perturbed plasma in a very low frequency regime, where dusty plasmas support new kind of waves and instabilities due to the dust collective dynamics. In this analysis a fluid model is used and electrons and ions are determined by their Boltzmann factors in order to find an adequate dispersion relation, which has several parameters depending of the state equation constants. In this paper we use the state equation structured by Ree and Hoover using Pade approximant for a hard-sphere gas in the form P = nT 1 + nb{sub 0} (1 + a{sub 1}b{sub 0}n + a{sub 2}b{sub 0}{sup 2}n{sup 2}/1 - b{sub 1}b{sub 0}n + b{sub 2}b{sub 0}{sup 2}n{sup 2}) is applied, where b0 is calculated by the second virial term for the hard-core model. This type of equation is more accurate than other expressions and easier to manipulate. Comparisons between the ideal and non ideal cases is performed. Constants a1, a2, b1, b2, are calculated with the Pade method. The onset of the instability and also the growth rates are studied in function of relevant parameters of the system as the radius of the grains and their densities. In our analysis the instability region for non ideal plasma is compared with that of the ideal ones.

A multi-dimensional numerical model has been developed for the unsteady state oscillatory combustion of solid propellants subject to acoustic pressure disturbances. Including the gas phase unsteady effects, the assumption of uniform pressure across the flame zone, which has been conventionally used, is relaxed so that a higher frequency response in the long flame of a double-base propellant can be calculated. The formulation is based on a premixed, laminar flame with a one-step overall chemical reaction and the Arrhenius law of decomposition with no condensed phase reaction. In a given geometry, the Galerkin finite element solution shows the strong resonance and damping effect at the lower frequencies, similar to the result of Denison and Baum. Extended studies deal with the higher frequency region where the pressure varies in the flame thickness. The nonlinear system behavior is investigated by carrying out the second order expansion in wave amplitude when the acoustic pressure oscillations are finite in amplitude. Offset in the burning rate shows a negative sign in the whole frequency region considered, and it verifies the experimental results of Price. Finally, the velocity coupling in the two-dimensional model is discussed.

The propagation of ion acoustic waves in plasmas composed of ions, positrons, and nonthermally distributed electrons is investigated. By means of the reduction perturbation technique, a nonlinear Schroedinger equation is derived and the modulation instability of ion acoustic wave is analyzed, where the nonthermal parameter is found to be of significant importance. Furthermore, analytical expressions for the bright and dark solitons are obtained, and the interaction of multiple solitons is discussed.

Combustioninstability, where unsteady heat release couples with acoustic modes, has long been an area of concern in liquid rocket engines. Accurate modeling of the acoustic normal modes of the combustion chamber is important to understanding and preventing combustioninstability. This study evaluates the effect of injector resistance on the mode shapes and complex eigen-frequencies of an injector/combustion chamber system by defining a high Mach-flow form of the convective wave equation (see Eq. 1) in COMSOL Multiphysics' Coefficient Form PDE Mathematics Module.

Removal of fine particles (smaller than 2.5 {micro}m) from industrial flue gases is, at present, one of the most important problems in air pollution abatement. These particles which are hazardous because of their ability to penetrate deeply into the lungs, are difficult to remove by conventional separation technology. Sonic energy offers a means to solve this problem. The application of a high-intensity acoustic field to an aerosol induces agglomeration processes which changes the size distribution in favor of larger particles, which are then easier to precipitate with a conventional separator. In this work, the authors present a semiindustrial pilot plant in which this process is applied for reduction of particle emissions in coal combustion fumes. This installation basically consists of an acoustic agglomeration chamber with a rectangular cross-section, driven by four high-power and highly directional acoustic transducers of 10 and/or 20 kHz, and an electrostatic precipitator (ESP). In the experiments, a fluidized bed coal combustor was used as fume generator, and a sophisticated air sampling station was set up to carry out measurements with fume flow rates up to about 2,000 m{sup 3}/h, gas temperatures of about 150 C, and mass concentrations in the range 1--5 g/m{sup 3}. The fine particle reduction produced by the acoustic filter was about 40% of the number concentration.

We examine the nonlinear development of unstable magnetosonic waves driven by a background radiative flux—the radiation-driven magneto-acousticinstability (RMI, a.k.a. the "photon bubble" instability). The RMI may serve as a persistent source of density, radiative flux, and magnetic field fluctuations in stably stratified, optically thick media. The conditions for instability are present in a variety of astrophysical environments and do not require the radiation pressure to dominate or the magnetic field to be strong. Here, we numerically study the saturation properties of the RMI, covering three orders of magnitude in the relative strength of radiation, magnetic field, and gas energies. Two-dimensional, time-dependent radiation-magnetohydrodynamic simulations of local, stably stratified domains are conducted with Zeus-MP in the optically thick, highly conducting limit. Our results confirm the theoretical expectations of Blaes & Socrates in that the RMI operates even in gas-pressure-dominated environments that are weakly magnetized. The saturation amplitude is a monotonically increasing function of the ratio of radiation to gas pressure. Keeping this ratio constant, we find that the saturation amplitude peaks when the magnetic pressure is comparable to the radiation pressure. We discuss the implications of our results for the dynamics of magnetized stellar envelopes, where the RMI should act as a source of sub-photospheric perturbations.

We examine the nonlinear development of unstable magnetosonic waves driven by a background radiative flux-the radiation-driven magneto-acousticinstability (RMI, a.k.a. the ''photon bubble'' instability). The RMI may serve as a persistent source of density, radiative flux, and magnetic field fluctuations in stably stratified, optically thick media. The conditions for instability are present in a variety of astrophysical environments and do not require the radiation pressure to dominate or the magnetic field to be strong. Here, we numerically study the saturation properties of the RMI, covering three orders of magnitude in the relative strength of radiation, magnetic field, and gas energies. Two-dimensional, time-dependent radiation-magnetohydrodynamic simulations of local, stably stratified domains are conducted with Zeus-MP in the optically thick, highly conducting limit. Our results confirm the theoretical expectations of Blaes and Socrates in that the RMI operates even in gas-pressure-dominated environments that are weakly magnetized. The saturation amplitude is a monotonically increasing function of the ratio of radiation to gas pressure. Keeping this ratio constant, we find that the saturation amplitude peaks when the magnetic pressure is comparable to the radiation pressure. We discuss the implications of our results for the dynamics of magnetized stellar envelopes, where the RMI should act as a source of sub-photospheric perturbations.

Hydrodynamic (Landau) instability in combustion is typically associated with the onset of wrinkling of a flame surface, corresponding to the formation of steady cellular structures as the stability threshold is crossed. In the context of liquid-propellant combustion, such instability has recently been shown to occur for critical values of the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and the disturbance wavenumber, significantly generalizing previous classical results for this problem that assumed a constant normal burning rate. Additionally, however, a pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has been shown to occur as well, corresponding to the onset of temporal oscillations in the location of the liquid/gas interface. In the present work, we consider the realistic influence of a nonzero temperature sensitivity in the local burning rate on both types of stability thresholds. It is found that for sufficiently small values of this parameter, there exists a stable range of pressure sensitivities for steady, planar burning such that the classical cellular form of hydrodynamic instability and the more recent pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability can each occur as the corresponding stability threshold is crossed. For larger thermal sensitivities, however, the pulsating stability boundary evolves into a C-shaped curve in the disturbance-wavenumber/ pressure-sensitivity plane, indicating loss of stability to pulsating perturbations for all sufficiently large disturbance wavelengths. It is thus concluded, based on characteristic parameter values, that an equally likely form of hydrodynamic instability in liquid-propellant combustion is of a nonsteady, long-wave nature, distinct from the steady, cellular form originally predicted by Landau.

The modulational instability of ion acoustic waves is studied in the presence of a dc magnetic field, taking the ion temperature into account. It is well known that the instability sets in for wave numbers exceeding 1.47 kD when there is no magnetic field and the ion temperature is negligible. The instability behaviour, however, changes drastically when either the magnetic field is switched on or the ion temperature becomes important or both. In general three different regions emerge wherein the waves becomes modulationally unstable. The relative sizes of these regions change as the magnetic field, the angle of propagation and the ion temperature are varied.

This program started in February 1991, and is designed to improve our understanding of basic combustion phenomena by the modeling of various configurations undergoing experimental study by others. Results through 1992 were reported in the second workshop. Work since that time has examined the following topics: Flame-balls; Intrinsic and acousticinstabilities in multiphase mixtures; Radiation effects in premixed combustion; Smouldering, both forward and reverse, as well as two dimensional smoulder.

The solitary structures of multi–dimensional ion-acoustic solitary waves (IASWs) have been considered in magnetoplasmas consisting of electron-positron-ion with high-energy (superthermal) electrons and positrons are investigated. Using a reductive perturbation method, a nonlinear Zakharov-Kuznetsov equation is derived. The multi-dimensional instability of obliquely propagating (with respect to the external magnetic field) IASWs has been studied by the small-k (long wavelength plane wave) expansion perturbation method. The instability condition and the growth rate of the instability have been derived. It is shown that the instability criterion and their growth rate depend on the parameter measuring the superthermality, the ion gyrofrequency, the unperturbed positrons-to-ions density ratio, the direction cosine, and the ion-to-electron temperature ratio. Clearly, the study of our model under consideration is helpful for explaining the propagation and the instability of IASWs in space observations of magnetoplasmas with superthermal electrons and positrons.

Modulation instability of ion-acoustic waves (IAWs) is investigated in a collisionless unmagnetized one dimensional plasma, containing positive ions and electrons following the mixed nonextensive nonthermal distribution [Tribeche et al., Phys. Rev. E 85, 037401 (2012)]. Using the reductive perturbation technique, a nonlinear Schrödinger equation which governs the modulation instability of the IAWs is obtained. Valid range of plasma parameters has been fixed and their effects on the modulational instability discussed in detail. We find that the plasma supports both bright and dark solutions. The valid domain for the wave number k where instabilities set in varies with both nonextensive parameter q as well as non thermal parameter α. Moreover, the analysis is extended for the rational solutions of IAWs in the instability regime. Present study is useful for the understanding of IAWs in the region where such mixed distribution may exist.

Lined ducts are extensively applied to suppress noise emission from aero-engines and other turbomachines. The complex noise/flow interaction in a lined duct possibly leads to acousticinstability in certain conditions. To investigate the instability, the full linearized Navier-Stokes equations with eddy viscosity considered are solved in frequency domain using a Galerkin finite element method to compute the sound transmission in shear flow in the lined duct as well as the flow perturbation over the impedance wall. A good agreement between the numerical predictions and the published experimental results is obtained for the sound transmission, showing that a transmission peak occurs around the resonant frequency of the acoustic liner in the presence of shear flow. The eddy viscosity is an important influential factor that plays the roles of both providing destabilizing and making coupling between the acoustic and flow motions over the acoustic liner. Moreover, it is shown from the numerical investigation that the occurrence of the sound amplification and the magnitude of transmission coefficient are closely related to the realistic velocity profile, and we find it essential that the actual variation of the velocity profile in the axial direction over the liner surface be included in the computation. The simulation results of the periodic flow patterns possess the proper features of the convective instability over the liner, as observed in Marx et al.'s experiment. A quantitative comparison between numerical and experimental results of amplitude and phase of the instability is performed. The corresponding eigenvalues achieve great agreement.

The classical Landau/Levich models of liquid-propellant combustion, despite their relative simplicity, serve as seminal examples that correctly describe the onset of hydrodynamic instability in reactive systems. Recently, these two separate models have been combined and extended to account for a dynamic dependence, absent in the original formulations, of the local burning rate on the local pressure and temperature fields. The resulting model admits an extremely rich variety of both hydrodynamic and reactive/diffusive instabilities that can be analyzed either numerically or analytically in various limiting parameter regimes. In the present work, a formal asymptotic analysis, based on the realistic smallness of the gas-to-liquid density ratio, is developed to investigate the combined effects of gravity and other parameters on the hydrodynamic instability of the propagating liquid/gas interface. In particular, an analytical expression is derived for the neutral stability boundary A(p)(k), where A(p) is the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and k is the wavenumber of the disturbance. The results demonstrate explicitly the stabilizing effect of gravity on long-wave disturbances, the stabilizing effect of viscosity (both liquid and gas) and surface tension on short-wave perturbations, and the instability associated with intermediate wavenumbers for negative values of A(p). In the limiting case of weak gravity, it is shown that hydrodynamic instability in liquid-propellant combustion is a long-wave instability phenomenon, whereas at normal gravity, this instability is first manifested through O(1) wavenumber disturbances. it is also demonstrated that, in general, surface tension and the viscosity of both the liquid and gas phases each produce comparable stabilizing effects in the long-wavenumber regime, thereby providing important modifications to previous analyses in which one or more of these effects were neglected.

The classical Landau/Levich models of liquid-propellant combustion, despite their relative simplicity, serve as seminal examples that correctly describe the onset of hydrodynamic instability in reactive systems. Recently, these two separate models have been combined and extended to account for a dynamic dependence, absent in the original formulations, of the local burning rate on the local pressure and temperature fields. The resulting model admits an extremely rich variety of both hydrodynamic and reactive/diffusive instabilities that can be analyzed either numerically or analytically in various limiting parameter regimes. In the present work, a formal asymptotic analysis, based on the realistic smallness of the gas-to-liquid density ratio, is developed to investigate the combined effects of gravity and other parameters on the hydrodynamic instability of the propagating liquid/gas interface. In particular, an analytical expression is derived for the neutral stability boundary A(sub p)(k), where A(sub p) is the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and k is the wavenumber of the disturbance. The results demonstrate explicitly the stabilizing effect of gravity on long-wave disturbances, the stabilizing effect of viscosity (both liquid and gas) and surface tension on short-wave perturbations, and the instability associated with intermediate wavenumbers for critical negative values of A(sub p). In the limiting case of weak gravity, it is shown that hydrodynamic instability in liquid-propellant combustion is a long-wave instability phenomenon, whereas at normal gravity, this instability is first manifested through O(1) wavenumber disturbances. It is also demonstrated that, in general, surface tension and the viscosity of both the liquid and gas phases each produce comparable stabilizing effects in the large-wavenumber regime, thereby providing important modifications to previous analyses in which one or more of these effects were neglected.

The nonlinear propagation of planar and nonplanar (cylindrical and spherical) ion-acoustic waves in an unmagnetized electron–positron–ion–dust plasma with two-electron temperature distributions is investigated in the context of the nonextensive statistics. Using the reductive perturbation method, a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation is derived for the potential wave amplitude. The effects of plasma parameters on the modulational instability of ion-acoustic waves are discussed in detail for planar as well as for cylindrical and spherical geometries. In addition, for the planar case, we analyze how the plasma parameters influence the nonlinear structures of the first- and second-order ion-acoustic rogue waves within the modulational instability region. The present results may be helpful in providing a good fit between the theoretical analysis and real applications in future spatial observations and laboratory plasma experiments. -- Highlights: ► Modulational instability of ion-acoustic waves in a new plasma model is discussed. ► Tsallis’s statistics is considered in the model. ► The second-order ion-acoustic rogue wave is studied for the first time.

The melting transition in a two-dimensional complex (dusty) plasma is studied experimentally. A system consisting of {approx_equal}3900 microspheres is heated by amplitude modulating the rf discharge power with a square wave at the vertical resonance frequency. The vertical motion couples to an in-plane dust-acousticinstability at one-half the modulation frequency, thereby increasing the complex plasma's effective temperature. The 'thermodynamic' phase of the system is characterized for increasing levels of amplitude modulation at constant neutral pressure (35 mTorr Ar) and average rf power using the Lindemann ratio, defect density, bond-orientational correlation function, and pair correlation function. A melting transition showing evidence for an intermediate hexatic phase is observed.

The dynamics of linear perturbations in a differentially rotating accretion disk with a non-homogeneous vertical structure is investigated. We find that turbulent viscosity results in instability of both pinching oscillations, and bending modes. Not only the low-frequency fundamental modes, but also the high-frequency reflective harmonics appear to be unstable. The question of the limits of applicability of the thin disk model (MTD) is also investigated. Some differences in the dispersion properties of the MTD and of the three-dimensional model appear for wave numbers k acoustic mode in the 3D-model and the MTD is smaller than 5%. In the short wavelength case (kh > 1) these differences are increased.

A theoretical investigation is made to study envelope excitations and rogue wave structures of the newly predicted positron-acoustic waves (PAWs) in a plasma with nonextensive electrons and nonextensive hot positrons. The reductive perturbation technique (RPT) is used to derive a nonlinear Schrödinger equation-like (NLSE) which governs the modulational instability (MI) of the PAWs. The NLSE admits localized envelope solitary wave solutions of bright and dark type. These envelope solutions depend upon the intrinsic plasma parameters. It is found that the MI of the PAWs is significantly affected by nonextensivity and other plasma parameters. Further, the analysis is extended for the rogue wave structures of the PAWs. The findings of the present investigation should be useful in understanding the acceleration mechanism of stable electrostatic wave packets in four components nonextensive plasmas.

An algebraic model is derived that accounts for the effects of non-resolved Landau-Darrieus and thermo-diffusive instabilities on the propagation speed of fully premixed laminar and turbulent flame fronts in the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) context provided that the laminar flame speed appears as a model parameter in the LES combustion model. The model is derived assuming fractal characteristics of flames which exhibit cellular structures due to instabilities. The smallest and largest unstable wavelengths are computed employing a dispersion relation for nominally planar flames. Values for the fractal dimension characterising the flame structures are taken from the literature. A phenomenological model accounts for the stabilising effect of strain. Based on experimental data, a correlation for a critical strain rate, which indicates the onset of instabilities, is formulated. To validate the new model which accounts for instabilities on the effective speed of laminar flame propagation, laminar expanding spherical methane-air flames at p = 5 bar and p = 10 bar are simulated in the LES context. Values for the fractal dimension, as proposed in the literature, are varied. The predicted flame propagation speed is in very good agreement with experimental data when applying a fractal dimension of about D = 2.06. The critical strain turns out to be a suitable parameter to indicate the onset of instabilities and to quantify the influence of instabilities. Simulations applying a second model proposed by Bradley and valid for spherically expanding flames show similar results. LES of turbulent Bunsen flames at 1, 5 and 10 bar, which are characterised by u‧/s0L < 1, are performed to evaluate the derived instability model for turbulent flames. The simulated flames (from the Kobayashi database) have already been experimentally investigated in the context of Landau-Darrieus and thermo-diffusive instabilities. In agreement with conclusions from these investigations, for the

This Erratum addresses errors that occurred in some of the analysis in our recent publication (Ref. 1). The main elements of Ref. 1 are (1) the presentation of kinetic simulations of simulated Brillouin backscattering (SBS) and the accompanying secondary instability of the primary SBS ion acoustic wave (IAW) with and without the inclusion of the second harmonic of the primary IAW; (2) analyses of the four-wave (primary IAW, low-frequency IAW, and two sidebands of the primary IAW) and seven-wave (includes the second harmonic of the primary IAW and its two sidebands, as well as the four waves defined in the foregoing) dispersion relations for the secondary IAW instability; (3) comparisons of the results of solving the dispersion relations to the two particle simulations; (4) mode coupling calculations for SBS and the four-wave system of IAWs that model the particle simulations; and (5) a discussion and summary. However, the simplified 7-wave dispersion relation used in Ref. 1 propagated a typographical error in Eq.(44) in Ref. 2, the Pesme, Riconda, and Tikhonchuk (PRT) paper. This Erratum corrects Eq.(44) of Ref. 2 (discussed in more detail in an Erratum3 for Ref. 2) and revises Sec. IV of Ref. 1 by correcting the analysis and comparisons of the 4-wave and 7-wave dispersion relations, and the comparison of the 7-wave dispersion relation to the particle simulations. We find that the results of the corrected 7-wave dispersion relation are not profoundly different from the corresponding results in Ref. 1 and the 7-wave growth rates of the most unstable modes are more similar to the results of the 4-wave dispersion relation. The main results of Ref. 1 are unchanged: (1) the particle simulations exhibit a secondary IAW instability that is a modulational instability involving parallel and obliquely propagating IAWs; (2) the two types of particle simulation exhibit similar spectra, and the second harmonic IAW is a transient feature in the first particle simulation that is

In the analysis of interior acoustic problems, the time domain boundary element method (TBEM) suffers the monotonically increasing instability when using the direct Kirchhoff integral. This instability is related to the non-oscillatory static acoustic mode describing the constant spatial response in an enclosure. In this work, nonphysical natures of non-oscillatory static mode influencing the instability of TBEM calculation are investigated, and a method for stabilization is studied. In TBEM calculation, the static mode is represented by two non-oscillatory eigenmodes with different eigenvalues. The monotonically increasing instability is caused by the unstable poles of non-oscillatory eigenmodes as well as very small, very low frequency noise of an input signal. Interior problems with impedance boundary condition also exhibit the monotonically increasing instability stemming from its pseudo non-oscillatory static mode due to the lack of dissipation at very low frequencies. Calculation of transient sound fields within rigid and lined boxes provides numerical evidences. It is noted that the stabilization effort by modifying the coefficient matrix based on the spectral decomposition can be used only for correcting the unstable pole. The filtering method based on the eigen-analysis must be additionally used to avoid the remaining instability caused by very low frequency noise of input signal.

Dust-acoustic (DA) solitary structures and their multi-dimensional instability in a magnetized dusty plasma (containing inertial negatively and positively charged dust particles, and Boltzmann electrons and ions) have been theoretically investigated by the reductive perturbation method, and the small-k perturbation expansion technique. It has been found that the basic features (polarity, speed, height, thickness, etc.) of such DA solitary structures, and their multi-dimensional instability criterion or growth rate are significantly modified by the presence of opposite polarity dust particles and external magnetic field. The implications of our results in space and laboratory dusty plasma systems have been briefly discussed.

A gas turbine model combustor for partially premixed swirl flames was equipped with an optical combustion chamber and operated with CH4 and air at atmospheric pressure. The burner consisted of two concentric nozzles for separately controlled air flows and a ring of holes 12 mm upstream of the nozzle exits for fuel injection. The flame described here had a thermal power of 25 kW, a global equivalence ratio of 0.7, and exhibited thermo-acousticinstabilities at a frequency of approximately 400 Hz. The phase-dependent variations in the flame shape and relative heat release rate were determined by OH* chemiluminescence imaging; the flow velocities by stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (PIV); and the major species concentrations, mixture fraction, and temperature by laser Raman scattering. The PIV measurements showed that the flow field performed a "pumping" mode with varying inflow velocities and extent of the inner recirculation zone, triggered by the pressure variations in the combustion chamber. The flow field oscillations were accompanied by variations in the mixture fraction in the inflow region and at the flame root, which in turn were mainly caused by the variations in the CH4 concentration. The mean phase-dependent changes in the fluxes of CH4 and N2 through cross-sectional planes of the combustion chamber at different heights above the nozzle were estimated by combining the PIV and Raman data. The results revealed a periodic variation in the CH4 flux by more than 150 % in relation to the mean value, due to the combined influence of the oscillating flow velocity, density variations, and CH4 concentration. Based on the experimental results, the feedback mechanism of the thermo-acoustic pulsations could be identified as a periodic fluctuation of the equivalence ratio and fuel mass flow together with a convective delay for the transport of fuel from the fuel injector to the flame zone. The combustor and the measured data are well suited for the validation of

Combustioninstabilities (CI), due to thermoacoustic coupling between acoustic waves and chemical reaction, constitute a major danger for all combustion systems. They can drive the system to unstable states where the whole combustor can oscillate, vibrate, quench or in extreme cases explode or burn. Such phenomena are commonly observed in the final phases of development programs, leading to major difficulties and significant additional costs. One of the most famous examples of combustioninstabilities is the F1 engine of the Apollo program which required more than 1000 engine tests to obtain a stable regime satisfying all other constraints (performance, ignition, etc). CIs constitute one of the most challenging problems in fluid mechanics: they combine turbulence, acoustics, chemistry, unsteady two-phase flow in complex geometries. Since combustioninstabilities have been identified (more than hundred years ago), the combustion community has followed two paths: (1) improve our understanding of the phenomena controlling stability to build engines which would be ``stable by design'' and (2) give up on a detailed understanding of mechanisms and add control systems either in open or closed loop devices to inhibit unstable modes. Of course, understanding phenomena driving combustioninstabilities to suppress them would be the most satisfying approach but there is no fully reliable theory or numerical method today which can predict whether a combustor will be stable or not before it is fired. This talk will present an overview of combustioninstabilities phenomenology before focusing on: (1) active control methods for combustioninstabilities and (2) recent methods to predict unstable modes in combustors. These methods are based on recent Large Eddy Simulation codes for compressible reacting flows on HPC systems but we will also describe recent fully analytical methods which provide new insights into unstable modes in annular combustion chambers. Support: European

A method for a comprehensive approach to analysis of the dynamics of an actively controlled combustion chamber, with detailed analysis of the combustion models for the case of a solid rocket propellant, is presented here. The objective is to model the system as interconnected blocks describing the dynamics of the chamber, combustion and control. The analytical framework for the analysis of the dynamics of a combustion chamber is based on spatial averaging, as introduced by Culick. Combustion dynamics are analyzed for the case of a solid propellant. Quasi-steady theory is extended to include the dynamics of the gas-phase and also of a surface layer. The models are constructed so that they produce a combustion response function for the solid propellant that can be immediately introduced in the our analytical framework. The principal objective mechanisms responsible for the large sensitivity, observed experimentally, of propellant response to small variations. We show that velocity coupling, and not pressure coupling, has the potential to be the mechanism responsible for that high sensitivity. We also discuss the effect of particulate modeling on the global dynamics of the chamber and revisit the interpretation of the intrinsic stability limit for burning of solid propellants. Active control is also considered. Particular attention is devoted to the effect of time delay (between sensing and actuation); several methods to compensate for it are discussed, with numerical examples based on the approximate analysis produced by our framework. Experimental results are presented for the case of a Dump Combustor. The combustor exhibits an unstable burning mode, defined through the measurement of the pressure trace and shadowgraph imaging. The transition between stable and unstable modes of operation is characterized by the presence of hysteresis, also observed in other experimental works, and hence not a special characteristic of this combustor. Control is introduced in the

We have developed an uv collective Thomson scattering system for plasma produced by a short wavelength laser. The Ion Acoustic Decay Instabilities are studied in a large ({approximately}mm) scale, hot ({approximately}keV) plasma, which is relevant to a direct-driven laser fusion plasma. The IADI primary decay process is measured by the CTS. We used a random phase plate to minimize the non uniform irradiation of the interaction laser. Nevertheless, the threshold of the most unstable mode driven by the IADI is quite low. The measured threshold value agrees favorably with the theoretical value of the large scale plasma. We have also shown that the CTS from the IADI can be a good tool for measuring a local electron temperature. The measured results agree reasonably with the SAGE computer calculations. We used the real part of the wave (frequency) to estimate T{sub e}. The real part is, in general, reliable compared to the imaginary part such as the damping, and the growth rates. We have shown that the IADI can be easily excited in a large scale, hot plasma. The IADI has potentially important applications to direct drive laser fusion, and also critical surface diagnostic.

The nonlinear propagation of ion-acoustic waves is theoretically reported in a collisional plasma containing strongly coupled ions and nonthermal electrons featuring Tsallis distribution. For this purpose, the nonlinear integro-differential form of the generalized hydrodynamic model is used to investigate the strong-coupling effect. The modified complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with a linear dissipative term is derived for the potential wave amplitude in the hydrodynamic regime, and the modulation instability of ion-acoustic waves is examined. When the dissipative effect is neglected, the modified complex Ginzburg-Landau equation reduces to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Within the unstable region, two different types of second-order ion-acoustic rogue waves including single peak type and rogue wave triplets are discussed. The effect of the plasma parameters on the rogue waves is also presented.

Self-excited thermo-acousticinstabilities are a significant issue in the development of lean burn gas turbine combustors. Such instabilities arise through coupling of the unsteady heat release and acoustic waves, which can propagate both longitudinally and circumferentially in annular combustor geometries. Although a large number of studies have investigated longitudinal fluctuations in single axisymmetric flames, it is currently uncertain whether these results can be used to emulate circumferential oscillations in annular geometry. Therefore, the aim of the current project is to investigate the flame dynamics in an annular model gas turbine combustor during self-excited circumferential oscillations. Pressure measurements are used to characterise the circumferential oscillations, with high-speed OH chemiluminescence and OH-PLIF used to capture the flame dynamics. The flame structure and dynamics are significantly affected by both the proximity of neighbouring flames and the excitation mode; with different responses observed for small and large separation distances, and standing and spinning modes. These observations indicate that results from single flame investigations may only be representative of self-excited flames in annular geometry under in a limited set of conditions.

The oblique modulational instability of dust acoustic (DA) waves in an unmagnetized warm dusty plasma with nonthermal ions, taking into account dust grain charge variation (charging), is investigated. A nonlinear Schroedinger-type equation governing the slow modulation of the wave amplitude is derived. The effects of dust temperature, dust charge variation, ion deviation from Maxwellian equilibrium (nonthermality) and constituent species' concentration on the modulational instability of DA waves are examined. It is found that these parameters modify significantly the oblique modulational instability domain in the k-{theta} plane. Explicit expressions for the instability rate and threshold have been obtained in terms of the dispersion laws of the system. The possibility and conditions for the existence of different types of localized excitations are also discussed. The findings of this investigation may be useful in understanding the stable electrostatic wave packet acceleration mechanisms close to the Moon, and also enhances our knowledge on the occurrence of instability associated to pickup ions around unmagnetized bodies, such as comets, Mars, and Venus.

The global nonlinear time-dependent evolution of the inertial-acoustic mode instability in accretion disks surrounding black holes has been investigated. The viscous stress is assumed to be proportional to the gas pressure only, i.e., tau = alphap(sub g). It is found that an oscillatory nonsteady behavior exists in the inner regions of disks (r is less than 10r(sub g) where r(sub g) is the Schwarzschild radius) for sufficiently large alpha(greater than or approximately equal to 0.2) and for mass accretion rates less than about 0.3 times the Eddington value. The variations of the integrated bolometric luminosity from the disk, Delta L/L, are less than 3%. A power spectrum analysis of these variations reveals a power spectrum which can be fitted to a power-law function of the frequency Pis proportional to f(exp -gamma), with index gamma = 1.4-2.3 and a low-frequency feature at about 4 Hz in one case. In addition, a narrow peak centered at a frequency corresponding to the maximum epicyclic frequency of the disk at approximately 100-130 Hz and its first harmonic is also seen. The low-frequency modulations are remarkably similar to those observed in black hole candidate systems. The possible existence of a scattering corona in the inner region of the disk and/or other processes contributing to the power at high frequencies in the inner region of the accretion disk may make the detection of the high-frequency component difficult.

simulate sub-scale experiments. The efforts have focused on validating the potential use of CFD to study instability followed by the application of the...limits their applicability in new or novel designs, or in building a fundamental under- standing of the instability. The conditions inside the combustor...discretization scheme. A sub-grid eddy- viscosity based model that utilizes the sub-grid kinetic energy (ksgs) as characteristic velocity scale and a local filter

We have developed a large angle, UV collective Thomson scattering (CTS) diagnostic for high density, hot plasma relevant to laser fusion. The CTS measured the basic parameters of the plasma waves (frequency, wave number), or the spectral density function for selected wave vectors of plasma waves, which were excited by the IADI (ion acoustic parametric decay instability). It is a good diagnostic tool for a local electron temperature measurement. The electron temperature was estimated by measuring either ion acoustic wave or electron plasma wave in the laser intensity window of 1

The dual-mode resonant instabilities of the dust-acoustic surface wave propagating at the plasma-vacuum interfaces of the generalized Lorentzian dusty plasma slab are kinetically investigated. The dispersion relation is derived for the two propagation modes: symmetric and anti-symmetric waves. We have found that the temporal growth rate of the resonant instability increases with an increase of the slab thickness for both modes. Especially, the nonthermality of plasmas enhances the growth rate of the anti-symmetric resonant wave, and the nonthermal effect is enhanced as the slab thickness is increased. It is also found that the growth rate increases with increasing angular frequency of the rotating dust grain due to the enhanced resonant energy exchange.

An attempt has been made to study the multi-dimensional instability of dust-ion-acoustic (DIA) solitary waves (SWs) in magnetized multi-ion plasmas containing opposite polarity ions, opposite polarity dusts and non-thermal electrons. First of all, we have derived Zakharov-Kuznetsov (ZK) equation to study the DIA SWs in this case using reductive perturbation method as well as its solution. Small- k perturbation technique was employed to find out the instability criterion and growth rate of such a wave which can give a guideline in understanding the space and laboratory plasmas, situated in the D-region of the Earth's ionosphere, mesosphere, and solar photosphere, as well as the microelectronics plasma processing reactors.

A semirelativistic fluid model is employed to describe the nonlinear amplitude modulation of low-frequency (ionic scale) electrostatic waves in an unmagnetized electron-positron-ion plasma. Electrons and positrons are assumed to be degenerated and inertialess, whereas ions are warm and classical. A multiscale perturbation method is used to derive a nonlinear Schrödinger equation for the envelope amplitude, based on which the occurrence of modulational instability is investigated in detail. Various types of localized ion acoustic excitations are shown to exist, in the form of either bright type envelope solitons (envelope pulses) or dark-type envelope solitons (voids, holes). The plasma configurational parameters (namely, the relativistic degeneracy parameter, the positron concentration, and the ionic temperature) are shown to affect the conditions for modulational instability significantly, in fact modifying the associated threshold as well as the instability growth rate. In particular, the relativistic degeneracy parameter leads to an enhancement of the modulational instability mechanism. Furthermore, the effect of different relevant plasma parameters on the characteristics (amplitude, width) of these envelope solitary structures is also presented in detail. Finally, the occurrence of extreme amplitude excitation (rogue waves) is also discussed briefly. Our results aim at elucidating the formation and dynamics of nonlinear electrostatic excitations in superdense astrophysical regimes.

The use of hot-wires to cause controlled and local excitation of a laminar flow and generate acoustic waves is discussed. The excitation system which consists of two hot-wires located on the edge of the nozzle is described. The observations from excitation of 6 mm and 3.8 mm laminar jets are provided. A phase relation between acoustic waves generated by the hot-wires is detected; when the acoustic waves are in phase = O axisymmetric structures are observed and when the acoustic waves are in phase = pi nonaxisymmetric structures are present.

The periodic equivalence ratio modulation (PERM) method and apparatus significantly reduces and/or eliminates unstable conditions within a combustion chamber. The method involves modulating the equivalence ratio for the combustion device, such that the combustion device periodically operates outside of an identified unstable oscillation region. The equivalence ratio is modulated between preselected reference points, according to the shape of the oscillation region and operating parameters of the system. Preferably, the equivalence ratio is modulated from a first stable condition to a second stable condition, and, alternatively, the equivalence ratio is modulated from a stable condition to an unstable condition. The method is further applicable to multi-nozzle combustor designs, whereby individual nozzles are alternately modulated from stable to unstable conditions. Periodic equivalence ratio modulation (PERM) is accomplished by active control involving periodic, low frequency fuel modulation, whereby low frequency fuel pulses are injected into the main fuel delivery. Importantly, the fuel pulses are injected at a rate so as not to affect the desired time-average equivalence ratio for the combustion device.

High frequency combustioninstability problems in a liquid fuel annular combustion chamber are examined. A modified Galerkin method was used to produce a set of modal amplitude equations from the general nonlinear partial differential acoustic wave equation in order to analyze the problem of instability. From these modal amplitude equations, the two variable perturbation method was used to develop a set of approximate equations of a given order of magnitude. These equations were modeled to show the effects of velocity sensitive combustioninstabilities by evaluating the effects of certain parameters in the given set of equations.

We present 2D+2V Vlasov simulations of Ion Acoustic waves (IAWs) driven by an external traveling-wave potential, ϕ0 (x , t) , with frequency, ω, and wavenumber, k, obeying the kinetic dispersion relation. Both electrons and ions are treated kinetically. Simulations with ϕ0 (x , t) , localized transverse to the propagation direction, model IAWs driven in a laser speckle. The waves bow with a positive or negative curvature of the wave fronts that depends on the sign of the nonlinear frequency shift ΔωNL , which is in turn determined by the magnitude of ZTe /Ti where Z is the charge state and Te , i is the electron, ion temperature. These kinetic effects result can cause modulational and self-focusing instabilities that transfer wave energy to kinetic energy. Linear dispersion properties of IAWs are used in laser propagation codes that predict the amount of light reflected by stimulated Brillouin scattering. At high enough amplitudes, the linear dispersion is invalid and these kinetic effects should be incorporated. Including the spatial and time scales of these instabilities is computationally prohibitive. We report progress including kinetic models in laser propagation codes. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344 and funded by the Laboratory Research and Development Program at LLNL under project tracking code 15.

We consider the acoustic radiation of instability modes in dual-stream jets, with the inner nozzle buried within the outer shroud, particularly the upstream scattering into acoustic modes that occurs at the shroud lip. For supersonic core jets, several families of instability waves are possible, beyond the regular Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) mode, with very different modal shapes and propagation characteristics, which are candidates for changing the sound character of very high-speed jets. The co-axial shear layers are modeled as vortex sheets, with the Wiener-Hopf method used to compute these modes coupled with an asymptotic solution for the far-field radiation. A broadband mode spectra as well as single propagating modes are considered as incident and scattered waves. The resulting far-field directivity patterns are quantified, to show the efficiency of some of these radiation mechanisms, particularly in the upstream direction, which is not directly affected by the Mach-wave-like sound that is radiated from these modes irrespective of any scattering surface. A full Kutta condition, which provides the usual boundary condition at the shroud lip, is altered to examine how vortex shedding, perhaps controllable at the lip, affects the radiated sound.

The Low-level AcousticCombustion Source (LACS) which can fire its pulses at a high rate, has been tested successfully as a seismic marine source on shallow ice-age sediments in Byfjorden at Bergen, Norway. Pseudo-Noise pulsed signals with spiky autocorrelation functions were used to detect the sediments. Each transmitted sequence lasted 10 s and contained 43 pulses. While correlation gave a blurry result, deconvolution between the near-field recordings and the streamer recordings gave a clear seismic section. Compared to the section acquired with single air-gun shots along the same profile, the LACS gave a more clear presentation of the sediments and basement.

An analytic model is developed for understanding the abrupt onset of geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) in the presence of chirping energetic-particle-driven GAM (EGAM). This abrupt excitation phenomenon has been observed on LHD plasma. Threshold conditions for the onset of abrupt growth of GAM are derived, and the period doubling phenomenon is explained. The phase relation between the mother mode (EGAM) and the daughter mode (GAM) is also discussed. This result contributes to the understanding of "trigger problems" of laboratory and nature plasmas.

The influence of acoustic resonators on the acoustic and propulsion performance characteristics of a ramjet ejector chamber under conditions with vibration hydrogen combustion was experimentally examined. In the study, resonators having identical throats and different cavity diameters were used. For fixed-volume resonators the best propulsion performance characteristics were achieved in the case in which the cavity diameter differed little from the resonator throat diameter.

A one-dimensional, CFD based combustor simulation has been developed that exhibits self-excited, thermoacoustic oscillations in premixed combustor geometries that typically have large, abrupt changes in cross sectional area. The combustor geometry is approximated by dividing it into a finite number of one-dimensional sectors. Within each sector, the equations of motion are integrated numerically, along with a species transport and a reaction equation. Across the sectors, mass and energy are conserved, and momentum loss is prescribed using appropriately compatible boundary conditions that account for the area change. The resulting simulation and associated boundary conditions essentially represent a one-dimensional, multi-block technique. Details of the simulation code are presented herein. Results are then shown comparing experimentally observed and simulated operation of a particular combustor rig that exhibited different instabilities at different operating points. It will be shown that the simulation closely matched the rig data in oscillation amplitudes, frequencies, and operating points at which the instabilities occurred. Finally, advantages and limitations of the simulation technique are discussed.

Hydrodynamic (Landau) instability in combustion is typically associated with the onset of wrinkling of a flame surface, corresponding to the formation of steady cellular structures as the stability threshold is crossed. In the context of liquid-propellant combustion, such instability has recently been shown to occur for critical values of the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and the disturbance wavenumber, significantly generalizing previous classical results for this problem that assumed a constant normal burning rate. Additionally, however, a pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has been shown to occur as well, corresponding to the onset of temporal oscillations in the location of the liquid/gas interface. In the present work, we consider the realistic influence of a non-zero temperature sensitivity in the local burning rate on both types of stability thresholds. It is found that for sufficiently small values of this parameter, there exists a stable range of pressure sensitivities for steady, planar burning such that the classical cellular form of hydrodynamic instability and the more recent pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability can each occur as the corresponding stability threshold is crossed. For larger thermal sensitivities, however, the pulsating stability boundary evolves into a C-shaped curve in the (disturbance-wavenumber, pressure-sensitivity) plane, indicating loss of stability to pulsating perturbations for all sufficiently large disturbance wavelengths. It is thus concluded, based on characteristic parameter values, that an equally likely form of hydrodynamic instability in liquid-propellant combustion is of a non-steady, long-wave nature, distinct from the steady, cellular form originally predicted by Landau.

Hydrodynamic (Landau) instability in combustion is typically associated with the onset of wrinkling of a flame surface, corresponding to the formation of steady cellular structures as the stability threshold is crossed. In the context of liquid-propellant combustion, such instability has recently been shown to occur for critical values of the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate and the disturbance wavenumber, significantly generalizing previous classical results for this problem that assumed a constant normal burning rate. Additionally, however, a pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has been shown to occur as well, corresponding to the onset of temporal oscillations in the location of the liquid/gas interface. In the present work, we consider the realistic influence of a nonzero temperature sensitivity in the local burning rate on both types of stability thresholds. It is found that for sufficiently small values of this parameter, there exists a stable range of pressure sensitivities for steady, planar burning such that the classical cellular form of hydrodynamic instability and the more recent pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability can each occur as the corresponding stability threshold is crossed. For larger thermal sensitivities, however, the pulsating stability boundary evolves into a C-shaped curve in the (disturbance-wavenumber, pressure-sensitivity) plane, indicating loss of stability to pulsating perturbations for all sufficiently large disturbance wavelengths. It is thus concluded, based on characteristic parameter values, that an equally likely form of hydrodynamic instability in liquid-propellant combustion is of a nonsteady, long-wave nature, distinct from the steady, cellular form originally predicted by Landau.

An analytical technique for the prediction of the effects of rigid baffles on the stability of liquid propellant combustors is presented. A three dimensional combustor model characterized by a concentrated combustion source at the chamber injector and a constant Mach number nozzle is used. The linearized partial differential equations describing the unsteady flow field are solved by an eigenfunction matching method. Boundary layer corrections to this unsteady flow are used to evaluate viscous and turbulence effects within the flow. An integral stability relationship is then employed to predict the decay rate of the oscillations. Results show that sufficient dissipation exists to indicate that the proper mechanism of baffle damping is a fluid dynamic loss. The response of the dissipation model to varying baffle blade length, mean flow Mach number and oscillation amplitude is examined.

An overview of the emissions related research being conducted as part of the Fundamental Aeronautics Subsonics Fixed Wing Project is presented. The overview includes project metrics, milestones, and descriptions of major research areas. The overview also includes information on some of the emissions research being conducted under NASA Research Announcements. Objective: Development of comprehensive detailed and reduced kinetic mechanisms of jet fuels for chemically-reacting flow modeling. Scientific Challenges: 1) Developing experimental facilities capable of handling higher hydrocarbons and providing benchmark combustion data. 2) Determining and understanding ignition and combustion characteristics, such as laminar flame speeds, extinction stretch rates, and autoignition delays, of jet fuels and hydrocarbons relevant to jet surrogates. 3) Developing comprehensive kinetic models for jet fuels.

We have developed 5-channel collective Thomson scattering system to measure the ion acoustic wave excited by the ion acoustic wave decay instabilities. The multichannel collective Thomson scattering technique was established with 4{omega} probe laser beam using GDL laser system at LLE, Univ. of Rochester. We have obtained the ionic charge state Z by measuring the second harmonic emission from the ion acoustic decay instability. The LASNEX computer simulation calculations have been carried out. The experimental results agree very well with the LASNEX computer simulation results with the flux number f=0.1. In high power laser regime, the spectrum become broad, and the {alpha}{gamma} decreases indicating that the turbulent like spectrum is observed. In order to understand the experimental results, we have developed a theory to study absorption of laser and heat transport. This new theory includes the temporal evolution of the heat conduction region. The results agree with flux-limited hydrodynamic simulations. 20 refs.

We have developed 5-channel collective Thomson scattering system to measure the ion acoustic wave excited by the ion acoustic wave decay instabilities. The multichannel collective Thomson scattering technique was established with 4{omega} probe laser beam using GDL laser system at LLE, Univ. of Rochester. We have obtained the ionic charge state Z by measuring the second harmonic emission from the ion acoustic decay instability. The LASNEX computer simulation calculations have been carried out. The experimental results agree very well with the LASNEX computer simulation results with the flux number f=0.1. In high power laser regime, the spectrum become broad, and the {alpha}{gamma} decreases indicating that the turbulent like spectrum is observed. In order to understand the experimental results, we have developed a theory to study absorption of laser and heat transport. This new theory includes the temporal evolution of the heat conduction region. The results agree with flux-limited hydrodynamic simulations. 20 refs.

From a perturbation analysis of the fluid equations for a homogeneous unmagnetized plasma, it is shown that long wavelength ion waves are unstable when the electron temperature exceeds the ion temperature. Thus, the temperature difference can drive a resistive-type ion wave instability in a plasma which on a collisionless basis is stable. The additional destabilizing effect of a current is also investigated.

The effect of premixer-induced inlet swirl on the stability of a model swirl-stabilized, lean-premixed gas turbine combustor has been numerically investigated using the large-eddy simulation methodology. The unsteady vortex-flame and acoustic-flame interactions are captured in this study using a thin-flame model that includes an ability to account for the variation in inlet equivalence ratio. Comparisons are made, based on fluid particle trajectories, between the structure of the recirculation regions. It is shown that only for high swirl does a region of flow recirculation, often called vortex breakdown(VB), occur in the centreline region of the dump combustor. This VB region helps to stabilize the flame and results in significant attenuation of the fluctuating pressure amplitudes, p'. The reduced p' amplitudes are accompanied by reduced longitudinal flame-front oscillations and reduced coherence in the shed vortices. A methodology for open-loop control based on the modulation of incoming fuel-air equivalence ratio is investigated. It is demonstrated that combustor pressure fluctuations respond much more rapidly to these changes compared to earlier studies of inlet swirl number modulation. The impact of these changes on flame stability and overall dynamics is analysed and discussed. Finally, the impact of imperfect mixedness in the incoming fuel-air mixture is also analysed and it is shown that the pressure oscillation amplitude is actually reduced under these conditions.

The application of validated acoustic models to intake/exhaust system acoustic design is described with reference to a sequence of specific practical examples. These include large turbocharged diesel generating sets, truck engines and high performance petrol engines. The discussion includes a comparison of frequency domain, time domain and hybrid modelling approaches to design methodology. The calculation of sound emission from open terminations is summarized in an appendix.

The feasibility of damping more than one mode of rocket engine combustioninstability by means of differently tuned acoustic cavities sharing a common entrance was shown. Analytical procedures and acoustic modeling techniques for predicting the stability behavior of acoustic cavity designs in hot firings were developed. Full scale testing of various common entrance, dual cavity configurations, and subscale testing for the purpose of obtaining motion pictures of the cavity entrance region, to aid in determining the mechanism of cavity damping were the two major aspects of the program.

The pressure disturbances generated by an instability wave in the shear layer of a supersonic jet are studied for an axisymmetric jet inside a lined cylindrical duct. For the supersonic jet, locally linear stability analysis with duct wall boundary conditions is used to calculate the eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions. These values are used to determine the growth rates and phase velocities of the instability waves and the radial pressure disturbance patterns. The study is confined to the dominant Kelvin-Helmholtz instability mode and to the region just downstream of the nozzle exit where the shear layer is growing but is still small in size compared to the radius of the duct. Numerical results are used to study the effects of changes in the outer flow, growth in the shear layer thickness, wall distance, wall impedance, and frequency. Results indicate that the effects of the duct wall on shear layer growth rates diminish as the outer flow increases. Also, wall reflections cause variations in growth rates depending on wall height and Strouhal number. These variations are due to the phase relationship between the outgoing and the reflected incoming pressure disturbances at the shear layer. The growth rate variations can be reduced and the maximum growth rate minimized by keeping the imaginary part of the impedance negative.

The general problem of the nonlinear growth and limiting amplitude of acoustic waves in a combustion chamber is treated in three parts: (1) the general conservation equations are expanded in two small parameters, and then combined to yield a nonlinear inhomogeneous wave equation, (2) the unsteady pressure and velocity fields are expressed as a synthesis of the normal modes of the chamber, but with unknown time-varying amplitudes, and (3) the system of nonlinear equations is treated by the method of averaging to produce a set of coupled nonlinear first order differential equations for the amplitudes and phases of the modes. This approximate analysis is applied to the investigation of the unstable motions in a solid propellant rocket engine and in a T burner.

Simultaneous effects of dust charge fluctuation and nonthermal ions on the threshold point and growth rate of three-dimensional instability of dust-acoustic solitary waves (DASW) in magnetized dusty plasma have been investigated. In this model, dusty plasma consists of Maxwellian electrons, nonthermal ions, and micron size negatively charged dust particles. Modified Zakharov-Kuznetsov equation for DASW was derived employing a reductive perturbation method and its solitary answer under the influence of dust charge fluctuation and nonthermal ions has been studied. The dispersion relation of DASW has been derived using a small-k perturbation method. Results show that the direction and the magnitude of external magnetic field at which the instability takes place are strongly affected by the rate of dust charge fluctuation and nonthermality of ions. With increasing the number of nonthermal ions, the growth rate of instability decreases, while increasing the dust charge fluctuation increases the growth rate of instability.

This report is an improvement of ISAP-1, SRB Vorticity-Acoustic Coupled Instability Analysis, September 1986. Included in this report are the automatic generation of all input data for grid configuration, boundary conditions for coupled acoustic and vortical field calculations, transformation of all dimensions to a parametric form, resulting in flexibility for the user to define the size of the problem (geometric configurations) with reduction in storage (15 to 65%) and computer run-time (50 to 75%). Additional research is required for the following areas: (1) turbulence effects; (2) nonlinear wave oscillations; and (3) chemistry upon combustioninstability.

A pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has recently been shown to arise during liquid-propellant deflagration in those parameter regimes where the pressure-dependent burning rate is characterized by a negative pressure sensitivity. This type of instability can coexist with the classical cellular, or Landau, form of hydrodynamic instability, with the occurrence of either dependent on whether the pressure sensitivity is sufficiently large or small in magnitude. For the inviscid problem, it has been shown that when the burning rate is realistically allowed to depend on temperature as well as pressure, that sufficiently large values of the temperature sensitivity relative to the pressure sensitivity causes the pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability to become dominant. In that regime, steady, planar burning becomes intrinsically unstable to pulsating disturbances whose wavenumbers are sufficiently small. In the present work, this analysis is extended to the fully viscous case, where it is shown that although viscosity is stabilizing for intermediate and larger wavenumber perturbations, the intrinsic pulsating instability for small wavenumbers remains. Under these conditions, liquid-propellant combustion is predicted to be characterized by large unsteady cells along the liquid/gas interface.

Many papers have sought correlations between the parameters of secondary particles generated above the beam/work piece interaction zone, dynamics of processes in the keyhole, and technological processes. Low- and high-frequency oscillations of the current, collected by plasma have been observed above the welding zone during electron beam welding. Low-frequency oscillations of secondary signals are related to capillary instabilities of the keyhole, however; the physical mechanisms responsible for the high-frequency oscillations (>10 kHz) of the collected current are not fully understood. This paper shows that peak frequencies in the spectra of the collected high-frequency signal are dependent on the reciprocal distance between the welding zone and collector electrode. From the relationship between current harmonics frequency and distance of the collector/welding zone, it can be estimated that the draft velocity of electrons or phase velocity of excited waves is about 1600 m/s. The dispersion relation with the properties of ion-acoustic waves is related to electron temperature 10 000 K, ion temperature 2 400 K and plasma density 10{sup 16} m{sup −3}, which is analogues to the parameters of potential-relaxation instabilities, observed in similar conditions. The estimated critical density of the transported current for creating the anomalous resistance state of plasma is of the order of 3 A·m{sup −2}, i.e. 8 mA for a 3–10 cm{sup 2} collector electrode. Thus, it is assumed that the observed high-frequency oscillations of the current collected by the positive collector electrode are caused by relaxation processes in the plasma plume above the welding zone, and not a direct demonstration of oscillations in the keyhole.

Flow associated with a high speed air vehicle (HSAV) can get partially ionized. In the absence of external magnetic field the flow field turbulence is due to ion acoustic wave (IAW) instabilities. Our interest is in studying the impact of this turbulence on the radiation characteristics of EM signals from the HSAV. We decompose the radiated signal into coherent and diffuse parts. We find that the coherent part has the same spectrum as that of the source signal, but it is distorted because of dispersive coherent attenuation. The diffuse part is expressed as a convolution (in wavenumber and frequency) of the source signal with the spectrum of electron density fluctuations. This is a constrained convolution in the sense that the spectrum has to satisfy the IAW dispersion relation. A quantity that characterizes the flow is the mean free path (MFP). When the MFP is large compared to the thickness of the flow the coherent part is significant. If the MFP is larger than the thickness of the flow the diffuse part is the dominant part of the received signal. In the special case when the source signal frequency is close the electron plasma frequency, there can exist in the flow region Langmuir modes in addition to the EM modes. The radiation characteristics of EM source signals from the HSAV in this case are quite different.

Excitation of Coaxial Jets The earliest investigations of the effect of ambient pressure oscillations on free jets in- cludes those by Miesse [51], Newman [52...less effective in breaking up the jet than at lower chamber pressure. A majority of the studies done on acoustically excited coaxial jets involve in...outer jet on the near-field dynamics of the inner jet with axial excitation of each jet independently for 0.55 < R < 1.45. Axial forcing of the outer jet

The acoustics environment in space operations is important to maintain at manageable levels so that the crewperson can remain safe, functional, effective, and reasonably comfortable. High acoustic levels can produce temporary or permanent hearing loss, or cause other physiological symptoms such as auditory pain, headaches, discomfort, strain in the vocal cords, or fatigue. Noise is defined as undesirable sound. Excessive noise may result in psychological effects such as irritability, inability to concentrate, decrease in productivity, annoyance, errors in judgment, and distraction. A noisy environment can also result in the inability to sleep, or sleep well. Elevated noise levels can affect the ability to communicate, understand what is being said, hear what is going on in the environment, degrade crew performance and operations, and create habitability concerns. Superfluous noise emissions can also create the inability to hear alarms or other important auditory cues such as an equipment malfunctioning. Recent space flight experience, evaluations of the requirements in crew habitable areas, and lessons learned (Goodman 2003; Allen and Goodman 2003; Pilkinton 2003; Grosveld et al. 2003) show the importance of maintaining an acceptable acoustics environment. This is best accomplished by having a high-quality set of limits/requirements early in the program, the "designing in" of acoustics in the development of hardware and systems, and by monitoring, testing and verifying the levels to ensure that they are acceptable.

Combustioninstability in solid rocket motors and liquid engines has long been a subject of concern. Many rockets display violent fluctuations in pressure, velocity, and temperature originating from the complex interactions between the combustion process and gas dynamics. Recent advances in energy based modeling of combustioninstabilities require accurate determination of acoustic frequencies and mode shapes. Of particular interest is the acoustic mean flow interactions within the converging section of a rocket nozzle, where gradients of pressure, density, and velocity become large. The expulsion of unsteady energy through the nozzle of a rocket is identified as the predominate source of acoustic damping for most rocket systems. Recently, an approach to address nozzle damping with mean flow effects was implemented by French [1]. This new approach extends the work originated by Sigman and Zinn [2] by solving the acoustic velocity potential equation (AVPE) formulated by perturbing the Euler equations [3]. The present study aims to implement the French model within the COMSOL Multiphysiscs framework and analyzes one of the author's presented test cases.

The authors have studied the ion acoustic decay instability in a large ({approximately} 1 mm) scale, hot ({approximately} 1 keV) plasma, which is relevant to a laser fusion reactor target. They have shown that the instability threshold is low. They have developed a novel collective Thomson scattering diagnostic at a 90{degree} scattering angle. The scattering is nonetheless coherent, because of the modest ratio of the frequency of the probe laser to that of the pump laser, such that even for such a large angle, (k{lambda}{sub De}){sup 2} is much less than one. With this system they have measured the electron plasma wave excited by the ion acoustic decay instability near the critical density (n{sub e} {approximately} 0.86 n{sub c}). This allows them to use the frequency of the detected wave to measure the electron temperature in the interaction region, obtaining a result reasonably close to that predicted by the SAGE computer code.

Unstable thermoacoustic modes were investigated and controlled in an experimental low-emission swirl stabilized combustor, in which the acoustic boundary conditions were modified to obtain combustioninstability. Several axisymmetric and helical unstable modes were identified for fully premixed conditions. These unstable modes were associated with flow instabilities related to the recirculating wake-like region near the combustor axis and shear layer instabilities at the sudden expansion (dump plane). Open and closed loop active control systems were used to suppress the thermoacoustic pressure oscillations and to reduce undesired emissions of pollutants during premixed combustion. Pressure transducers and OH emission detection sensors monitored the combustion process and provide input to the processor of the control system. The actuators were high frequency valves, which were employed to superimpose modulations in the fuel stream. Symmetric and antisymmetric fuel injection schemes were tested. Suppression levels of up to 24 dB in the pressure oscillations were obtained. In some of the cases tested, concomitant reductions of NOx and CO emissions were achieved. The effect of the various pulsed fuel injection methods on the combustion structure was investigated.

During the shutdown of the space shuttle main engine, oxygen flow is shut off from the fuel preburner and helium is used to push the residual oxygen into the combustion chamber. During this process a low frequency combustioninstability, or chug, occurs. This chug has resulted in damage to the engine's augmented spark igniter due to backflow of the contents of the preburner combustion chamber into the oxidizer feed system. To determine possible causes and fixes for the chug, the fuel preburner was modeled as a heterogeneous stirred tank combustion chamber, a variable mass flow rate oxidizer feed system, a constant mass flow rate fuel feed system and an exit turbine. Within the combustion chamber gases were assumed perfectly mixed. To account for liquid in the combustion chamber, a uniform droplet distribution was assumed to exist in the chamber, with mean droplet diameter determined from an empirical relation. A computer program was written to integrate the resulting differential equations. Because chamber contents were assumed perfectly mixed, the fuel preburner model erroneously predicted that combustion would not take place during shutdown. The combustion rate model was modified to assume that all liquid oxygen that vaporized instantaneously combusted with fuel. Using this combustion model, the effect of engine parameters on chamber pressure oscillations during the SSME shutdown was calculated.

We propose a method to reduce the complexity of the reacting compressible Navier-Stokes equations for global/sensitivity analyses of thermo-acoustic systems. We use multiple space-scale analysis and consider a low Mach number. We assume that reacting hydrodynamic phenomena evolve at small space scales whereas acoustics evolve at larger space scales, a common situation in thermo-acoustics. The reacting hydrodynamics (RH) is governed by the reacting low Mach number equations, and the acoustics (AC) by the reacting Euler equations. The RH feeds into the AC via the heat release by the flame and the AC, in turn, feed back into the RH via the acoustic-pressure gradient (Klein's limit). These two coupling terms enable the thermo-acoustic system to be linearized around time-averaged LES flows and studied as an eigenproblem. We perform global, adjoint and sensitivity analyses, investigating the reciprocal influence of RH/AC interactions and suggest strategies for open-loop control. The analysis is applied to a dump combustor and a complex industrial combustor (Meier's).

In this paper, we propose energy-conserving Eulerian solvers for the two-species Vlasov-Ampère (VA) system and apply the methods to simulate current-driven ion-acousticinstability. The two-species VA systems are of practical importance in applications, and they conserve many physical quantities including the particle number of each species and the total energy that is comprised of kinetic energy for both species and the electric energy. The main goal of this paper is to generalize our previous work for the single-species VA system [9] and Vlasov-Maxwell (VM) system [8] to the two-species case. The methodologies proposed involve careful design of temporal discretization and the use of the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) spatial discretizations. We show that the energy-conserving time discretizations for single-species equations [9,8] can also work for the two-species case if extended properly. Compared to other high order schemes, we emphasize that our schemes can preserve the total particle number and total energy on the fully discrete level regardless of mesh size, making them very attractive for long time simulations. We benchmark our algorithms on a test example to check the one-species limit, and the current-driven ion-acousticinstability. To simulate the current-driven ion-acousticinstability, a slight modification for the implicit method is necessary to fully decouple the split equations. This is achieved by a Gauss-Seidel type iteration technique. Numerical results verified the conservation and performance of our methods. Finally, we remark that the schemes in this paper can be readily extended to applications when the models take more general form, such as the multi-species VM equations.

The nonlinear propagation of dust ion-acoustic solitary waves (DIASWs) in a magnetized dusty plasma which consists of two different types of nonisothermal electrons, hot adiabatic inertial ions fluid and immobile negatively charged dust particles is studied. The modified Zakharov-Kuznetsov (MZK) equation, describing the small but finite amplitude DIASWs, is derived using a reductive perturbation method. The combined effects of the external magnetic field, obliqueness (i.e., the propagation angle), and the two-temperature nonisothermal electrons, which are found to significantly modify the basic properties of DIASWs, are explicitly examined. The three-dimensional instability of DIASWs is also analyzed using the small-k (long wavelength plane wave) perturbation expansion technique. The results show that the external magnetic field, the propagation angle, and the two-temperature nonisothermal electrons have strong effects on the instability criterion as well as the growth rate.

This document is the fifth of the seven volumes series of our Phase II Final Report. The material developed in this volume has not been incorporated into the system model. It will be used as a precursor of a transient model to be developed in the next phase of our model work. There have been various fluidized combustor models of differing complexity and scope published in the literature. Most of these models have identified and predicted - often in satisfactory agreement with results from pilot units - the key steady state combustor characteristics such as the mass of carbon in the bed (carbon loading), the combustion efficiency, the sulfur retention by the solid sorbent and the pollutant (mainly NO/sub x/) emissions. These models, however, cannot be in most instances successfully used to study the extinction and ignition characteristics of the combustor because they are isothermal in structure in the sense that the bed temperature is not an output variable but rather an input one and must be a priori specified. In order to remedy these inadequacies of the previous models, we here present a comprehensive account of the formulation and some typical results of a new nonisothermal model which has been developed in order to study, among other things, the ignition and extinction characteristics of the AFBC units. This model is able to predict the temperature patterns in the bed, the carbon loading, the combustion efficiency and the O/sub 2/ and CO concentration profiles in the combustor for the different design or operational characteristics.

Rocket engines fueled by a dense propellant such as kerosene provide a number of advantages over hydrogen-fueled engines for primary stages. A major problem in the development of liquid fueled rocket engines has been the occurrence of combustioninstability. The lack of a detailed understanding of how combustioninstability occurs in liquid-fueled rocket engines has resulted in costly engine development programs that must be avoided in the future. The present research program examined the specific effects of atomization in combustioninstability. The effects of mean drop size, drop size distribution, and atomization periodicity were examined explicitly with a combustion response model, the results from which indicated that all of these effects were important. It was shown that periodic atomization, in particular, results in large variations in the magnitude of the response when the atomization frequency is on the same order as the acoustic oscillation frequency. Experimental results from a sub-scale rocket combustor that used electro-mechanically forced atomization to accentuate the natural frequency of periodic atomization associated with impinging jet injectors were also undertaken. The presence of forced longitudinal modes, corresponding to the forced atomization frequencies, substantiate the importance of periodic atomization. A conceptual model of this potentially dominant mechanism of combustioninstability was also developed as part of the study.

The main objective of this research is to analyze the effect of acoustic disturbances on a premixed flame and determine their role in the onset of combustioninstabilities. Computations for the one-dimensional, unsteady combustion of a lean premixed methane-air mixture are performed. An acoustic excitation is introduced in the chamber and interacts with the flame front. Our results indicate that as the amplitude of the acoustic excitation is increased, the flame front position fluctuates rapidly. This phenomenon is even more intense when the frequency of the acoustic disturbance matches the fundamental frequency of the chamber. Our results suggest that the interactions between the flame and the acoustic excitation may result in flame extinguishment. In addition various passive control devices are tested and we found that the Helmholtz resonator with rounded inlet corners is the most efficient.

This dissertation investigates the combustion and injection fundamental characteristics of different alternative fuels both experimentally and theoretically. The subjects such as lean partially premixed combustion of methane/hydrogen/air/diluent, methane high pressure direct-injection, thermal plasma formation, thermodynamic properties of hydrocarbon/air mixtures at high temperatures, laminar flames and flame morphology of synthetic gas (syngas) and Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) fuels were extensively studied in this work. These subjects will be summarized in three following paragraphs. The fundamentals of spray and partially premixed combustion characteristics of directly injected methane in a constant volume combustion chamber have been experimentally studied. The injected fuel jet generates turbulence in the vessel and forms a turbulent heterogeneous fuel-air mixture in the vessel, similar to that in a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Direct-Injection (DI) engines. The effect of different characteristics parameters such as spark delay time, stratification ratio, turbulence intensity, fuel injection pressure, chamber pressure, chamber temperature, Exhaust Gas recirculation (EGR) addition, hydrogen addition and equivalence ratio on flame propagation and emission concentrations were analyzed. As a part of this work and for the purpose of control and calibration of high pressure injector, spray development and characteristics including spray tip penetration, spray cone angle and overall equivalence ratio were evaluated under a wide range of fuel injection pressures of 30 to 90 atm and different chamber pressures of 1 to 5 atm. Thermodynamic properties of hydrocarbon/air plasma mixtures at ultra-high temperatures must be precisely calculated due to important influence on the flame kernel formation and propagation in combusting flows and spark discharge applications. A new algorithm based on the statistical thermodynamics was developed to calculate the ultra-high temperature plasma

This paper presents a numerical study of the influence of loading conditions on the vibrational and acoustic responses of a disc brake system subjected to squeal. A simplified model composed of a circular disc and a pad is proposed. Nonlinear effects of contact and friction over the frictional interface are modelled with a cubic law and a classical Coulomb's law with a constant friction coefficient. The stability analysis of this system shows the presence of two instabilities with one and two unstable modes that lead to friction-induced nonlinear vibrations and squeal noise. Nonlinear time analysis by temporal integration is conducted for two cases of loadings and initial conditions: a static load near the associated sliding equilibrium and a slow and a fast ramp loading. The analysis of the time responses shows that a sufficiently fast ramp loading can destabilize a stable configuration and generate nonlinear vibrations. Moreover, the fast ramp loading applied for the two unstable cases generates higher amplitudes of velocity than for the static load cases. The frequency analysis shows that the fast ramp loading generates a more complex spectrum than for the static load with the appearance of new resonance peaks. The acoustic responses for these cases are estimated by applying the multi-frequency acoustic calculation method based on the Fourier series decomposition of the velocity and the Boundary Element Method. Squeal noise emissions for the fast ramp loading present lower or higher levels than for the static load due to the different amplitudes of velocities. Moreover, the directivity is more complex for the fast ramp loading due to the appearance of new harmonic components in the velocity spectrum. Finally, the sound pressure convergence study shows that only the first harmonic components are sufficient to well describe the acoustic response.

Development is underway of the J -2X engine, a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocket engine for use on the Space Launch System. The Engine E10001 began hot fire testing in June 2011 and testing will continue with subsequent engines. The J -2X engine main combustion chamber contains both acoustic cavities and baffles. These stability aids are intended to dampen the acoustics in the main combustion chamber. Verification of the engine thrust chamber stability is determined primarily by examining experimental data using a dynamic stability rating technique; however, additional requirements were included to guard against any spontaneous instability or rough combustion. Startup and shutdown chug oscillations are also characterized for this engine. This paper details the stability requirements and verification including low and high frequency dynamics, a discussion on sensor selection and sensor port dynamics, and the process developed to assess combustion stability. A status on the stability results is also provided and discussed.

Research efforts are currently underway at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Lampoldshausen, which aim to understand the mechanisms by which self-sustaining oscillations in combustion chamber pressure, known as high frequency combustioninstabilities, are driven. Testing has been conducted in the rectangular combustor `BKH', running cryogenic oxygen and hydrogen propellants under pressure and injection conditions which are representative of real rocket engines and with acoustic forcing. For the first time, such tests with LOx/H2 propellants and acoustic forcing have been conducted at combustion chamber pressures above 10 bar, the reported results herein from a test at 42 bar. Optical access to the combustor allowed the application of high speed hydroxyl radical (OH*) chemiluminescence imaging of the flame during periods of forced excitation of acoustic resonance modes of the combustion chamber. This paper reports the investigation of flame response to acoustic excitation. Both fluctuation in OH* emission intensity and deflection of the flame at frequencies corresponding to the excitation frequency have been observed. These responses are then discussed as potential indicators of driving mechanisms for combustioninstabilities.

Recent regulations on NO, emissions are promoting the use of lean premix (LPM) combustion for industrial gas turbines. LPM combustors avoid locally stoichiometric combustion by premixing fuel and the air upstream of the reaction region, thereby eliminating the high temperatures that produce thermal NO.. Unfortunately, this style of combustor is prone to combustion oscillation. Significant pressure fluctuations can occur when variations in heat release periodically couple pressure to acoustic modes in the combustion chamber. These oscillations must be controlled because resulting vibration can shorten the life of engine hardware. Laboratory and engine field testing have shown that instability regimes can vary with environmental conditions. These observations prompted this study of the effects of ambient conditions and fuel composition on combustion stability. Tests are conducted on a sub-scale combustor burning natural gas, propane, and some hydrogen/hydrocarbon mixtures. A premix, swirl-stabilized fuel nozzle typical of industrial gas turbines is used. Experimental and numerical results describe how stability regions may shift as inlet air temperature, humidity, and fuel composition are altered. Results appear to indicate that shifting instabilityinstability regimes are primarily caused by changes in reaction rate.

The nonlinear propagation of cylindrical and spherical dust-ion-acoustic (DIA) envelope solitary waves in unmagnetized dusty plasma consisting of dust particles with opposite polarity and non-extensive distribution of electron is investigated. By using the reductive perturbation method, the modified nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation in cylindrical and spherical geometry is obtained. The modulational instability (MI) of DIA waves governed by the NLS equation is also presented. The effects of different ranges of the non-extensive parameter q on the MI are studied. The growth rate of the MI is also given for different values of q. It is found that the basic features of the DIA waves are significantly modified by non-extensive electron distribution, polarity of the net dust-charge number density and non-planar geometry.

Nonlinear pressure oscillations have been observed in liquid propellant rocket instability preburner devices. Unlike the familiar transverse mode instabilities that characterize primary combustion chambers, these oscillations appear as longitudinal gas motions with frequencies that are typical of the chamber axial acoustic modes. In several respects, the phenomenon is similar to longitudinal mode combustioninstability appearing in low-smoke solid propellant motors. An important feature is evidence of steep-fronted wave motions with very high amplitude. Clearly, gas motions of this type threaten the mechanical integrity of associated engine components and create unacceptably high vibration levels. This paper focuses on development of the analytical tools needed to predict, diagnose, and correct instabilities of this type. For this purpose, mechanisms that lead to steep-fronted, high-amplitude pressure waves are described in detail. It is shown that such gas motions are the outcome of the natural steepening process in which initially low amplitude standing acoustic waves grow into shock-like disturbances. The energy source that promotes this behavior is a combination of unsteady combustion energy release and interactions with the quasi-steady mean chamber flow. Since shock waves characterize the gas motions, detonation-like mechanisms may well control the unsteady combustion processes. When the energy gains exceed the losses (represented mainly by nozzle and viscous damping), the waves can rapidly grow to a finite amplitude limit cycle. Analytical tools are described that allow the prediction of the limit cycle amplitude and show the dependence of this wave amplitude on the system geometry and other design parameters. This information can be used to guide corrective procedures that mitigate or eliminate the oscillations.

During the duration of this sponsorship, we broadened our understanding of combustioninstabilities through both analytical and experimental work. Predictive models were developed for flame response to transverse acousticinstabilities and for quantifying how a turbulent flame responds to velocity and fuel/air ratio forcing. Analysis was performed on the key instability mechanisms controlling heat release response for flames over a wide range of instability frequencies. Importantly, work was done closely with industrial partners to transition existing models into internal instability prediction codes. Experimentally, the forced response of hydrogen-enriched natural gas/air premixed and partially premixed flames were measured. The response of a lean premixed flame was investigated, subjected to velocity, equivalence ratio, and both forcing mechanisms simultaneously. In addition, important physical mechanisms controlling the response of partially premixed flames to inlet velocity and equivalence ratio oscillations were analyzed. This final technical report summarizes our findings and major publications stemming from this program.

stationary combustion and lean blow-out, an improved version of the Linear Eddy Model approach is used, while in the case of thermo-acoustic...instabilities, the effect of boundary conditions on the predictions are studied. The improved version couples the Linear Eddy Model with the full-set of... improved Linear Eddy Model approach is applied to predict the flame properties inside the Volvo rig and it is shown to over-predict the flame

The Black Brant variation of the Standard Brant developed in the 1960's has been a workhorse motor of the NASA Sounding Rocket Project Office (SRPO) since the 1970's. In March 2012, the Black Brant Mk1 used on mission 36.277 experienced combustioninstability during a flight at White Sands Missile Range, the third event in the last four years, the first occurring in November, 2009, the second in April 2010. After the 2010 event the program has been increasing the motor's throat diameter post-delivery with the goal of lowering the chamber pressure and increasing the margin against combustioninstability. During the most recent combustioninstability event, the vibrations exceeded the qualification levels for the Flight Termination System. The present study utilizes data generated from T-burner testing of multiple Black Brant propellants at the Naval Air Warfare Center at China Lake, to improve the combustion stability predictions for the Black Brant Mk1 and to generate new predictions for the Mk2. Three unique one dimensional (1-D) stability models were generated, representing distinct Black Brant flights, two of which experienced instabilities. The individual models allowed for comparison of stability characteristics between various nozzle configurations. A long standing "rule of thumb" states that increased stability margin is gained by increasing the throat diameter. In contradiction to this experience based rule, the analysis shows that little or no margin is gained from a larger throat diameter. The present analysis demonstrates competing effects resulting from an increased throat diameter accompanying a large response function. As is expected, more acoustic energy was expelled through the nozzle, but conversely more acoustic energy was generated due to larger gas velocities near the propellant surfaces.

Anodic double layer instabilities occur in low-temperature diffusion filament-type discharge plasma by applying a certain positive bias with respect to the plasma potential to an additional electrode. Periodic nonlinear regimes, characterized by proper dynamics of double layers, are sustained if excitation and ionization rates in front of the electrode reach the value for which current limitation effects appear in the static current-voltage characteristic. It was experimentally shown that under specific experimental conditions these ordered spatiotemporal phenomena can evolve into chaotic states by type I intermittency. This transition was verified by the evolution of time series, fast Fourier transform amplitude plots, three-dimensional reconstructed state spaces, power laws, and flickering phenomena spectrum, as well as by the return map and tangent bifurcation.

The heat flux instability is an electromagnetic mode excited by a relative drift between the protons and two-component core-halo electrons. The most prominent application may be in association with the solar wind where drifting electron velocity distributions are observed. The heat flux instability is somewhat analogous to the electrostatic Buneman or ion-acousticinstability driven by the net drift between the protons and bulk electrons, except that the heat flux instability operates in magnetized plasmas and possesses transverse electromagnetic polarization. The heat flux instability is also distinct from the electrostatic counterpart in that it requires two electron species with relative drifts with each other. In the literature, the heat flux instability is often called the 'whistler' heat flux instability, but it is actually polarized in the opposite sense to the whistler wave. This paper elucidates all of these fundamental plasma physical properties associated with the heat flux instability starting from a simple model, and gradually building up more complexity towards a solar wind-like distribution functions. It is found that the essential properties of the instability are already present in the cold counter-streaming electron model, and that the instability is absent if the protons are ignored. These instability characteristics are highly reminiscent of the electron firehose instability driven by excessive parallel temperature anisotropy, propagating in parallel direction with respect to the ambient magnetic field, except that the free energy source for the heat flux instability resides in the effective parallel pressure provided by the counter-streaming electrons.

A potentially important source of large pressure oscillations in compact ramjets is a combustioninstability induced by the interaction of large-scale vortex structures with acoustic modes in the combustion chamber. To study these interactions numerical simulations were performed using the Flux Corrected Transport technique. The highlights are presented of the work to date on the chemical-acoustic-vortex interactions in an idealized axisymmetric ramjet combustor. The results of a number of cold flow calculations are presented in which the length of the combustion chamber and the acoustic forcing function were systematically varied. These simulations indicate a strong coupling between the acoustic modes and the frequency of formation of large vortical structures near the entrance to the combustion chamber. They also show the presence of a low frequency oscillation which does not directly depend on the acoustics of the combustor but depends on the acoustics of the inlet. The effects of energy release from chemical reactions on the flow field in the combustor and the low frequecy oscillations are discussed.

In a quest to reduce the environmental impact of aerospace propulsion systems, extensive research is being done in the development of lean-burning (low fuel-to-air ratio) combustors that can reduce emissions throughout the mission cycle. However, these lean-burning combustors have an increased susceptibility to thermoacoustic instabilities, or high-pressure oscillations much like sound waves, that can cause severe high-frequency vibrations in the combustor. These pressure waves can fatigue the combustor components and even the downstream turbine blades. This can significantly decrease the safe operating life of the combustor and turbine. Thus, suppression of the thermoacoustic combustor instabilities is an enabling technology for lean, low-emissions combustors. Under the Aerospace Propulsion and Power Base Research and Technology Program, the NASA Glenn Research Center, in partnership with Pratt & Whitney and United Technologies Research Center, is developing technologies for the active control of combustioninstabilities. With active combustion control, the fuel is pulsed to put pressure oscillations into the system. This cancels out the pressure oscillations being produced by the instabilities. Thus, the engine can have lower pollutant emissions and long life.The use of active combustioninstability control to reduce thermo-acoustic-driven combustor pressure oscillations was demonstrated on a single-nozzle combustor rig at United Technologies. This rig has many of the complexities of a real engine combustor (i.e., an actual fuel nozzle and swirler, dilution cooling, etc.). Control was demonstrated through modeling, developing, and testing a fuel-delivery system able to the 280-Hz instability frequency. The preceding figure shows the capability of this system to provide high-frequency fuel modulations. Because of the high-shear contrarotating airflow in the fuel injector, there was some concern that the fuel pulses would be attenuated to the point where they would

Highlights: • The particle size of bottom ash influenced the acoustic behavior of the barrier. • The best sound absorption coefficients were measured for larger particle sizes. • The maximum noise absorption is displaced to lower frequencies for higher thickness. • A noise barrier was designed with better properties than commercial products. • Recycling products from bottom ash no present leaching and radioactivity problems. - Abstract: The present study aims to determine and evaluate the applicability of a new product consisting of coal bottom ash mixed with Portland cement in the application of highway noise barriers. In order to effectively recycle the bottom ash, the influence of the grain particle size of bottom ash, the thickness of the panel and the combination of different layers with various particle sizes have been studied, as well as some environmental properties including leachability (EN-12457-4, NEN-7345) and radioactivity tests. Based on the obtained results, the acoustic properties of the final composite material were similar or even better than those found in porous concrete used for the same application. According to this study, the material produced presented no environmental risk.

Thermoacoustic instabilities in modern high-performance, low-emission gas turbine engines are often observable as large amplitude pressure oscillations and can result in serious performance and structural degradations. These acoustic oscillations can cause oscillations in combustor through-flows and given the right phase conditions, can also drive unsteady heat release. To curb the potential harms caused by the existence of thermoacoustic instabilities, recent efforts have focused on the active suppression of these instabilities. Intuitively, development of effective active combustion control methodologies is strongly dependent on the knowledge of the onset and sustenance of thermoacoustic instabilities. Specially, non-premixed spray combustion environment pose additional challenges due to the inherent unstable dynamics of sprays. The understanding of the manner in which the combustor acoustics affect the spray characteristics, which in turn result in heat release oscillation, is therefore, of paramount importance. The experimental investigations and the modeling studies conducted towards achieving this knowledge have been presented in this dissertation. Experimental efforts comprise both reacting and non-reacting flow studies. Reacting flow experiments were conducted on a overall lean direct injection, swirl-stabilized combustor rig. The investigations spanned combustor characterization and stability mapping over the operating regime. The onset of thermoacoustic instability and the transition of the combustor to two unstable regimes were investigated via phase-locked chemiluminescence imaging and measurement and phase-locked acoustic characterization. It was found that the onset of the thermoacoustic instability is a function of the energy gain of the system, while the sustenance of instability is due to the in-phase relationship between combustor acoustics and unsteady heat release driven by acoustic oscillations. The presence of non-linearities in the system

Major obstacles in overcoming combustioninstability include the absence of a mechanistic and a priori prediction capability, and the difficulty in studying instability in the laboratory due to the perceived need for testing at the full-scale pressure and geometry to ensure that important processes are maintained. A hierarchal approach toward combustioninstability is described that comprises experiment, analysis, and highfidelity computation to develop combustion response submodels that can be used in engineering-level design analysis. The paper provides an illustrative example of how these elements are used to develop a prediction for growth rates in model rocket combustors that generate spontaneous longitudinal combustioninstabilities.

A phenomenon that potentially influences the reliability of power generation systems is the presence of thermo-acoustic oscillations in the combustion chamber of a land- based gas turbine. To develop specific measures that prevent the instability, it is essential to predict and/or evaluate the underlying physics of the thermo-acoustics, which requires the acoustic boundary condition at the exit of the burner, that is, at the inlet of the combustor. Here we report a procedure for calculating acoustic reflection coefficients at the burner exit by utilizing two microphone method (TMM) for dynamic pressure signals. The procedure has been verified by comparing its results with reported ones and further successfully employed to determine the acoustic boundary condition of the burner of a partially-premixed model gas turbine combustor.

Thermoacoustic instabilities in gas turbines and aeroengine combustors falls within the category of complex systems. They can be described phenomenologically using nonlinear stochastic differential equations, which constitute the grounds for output-only model-based system identification. It has been shown recently that one can extract the governing parameters of the instabilities, namely the linear growth rate and the nonlinear component of the thermoacoustic feedback, using dynamic pressure time series only. This is highly relevant for practical systems, which cannot be actively controlled due to a lack of cost-effective actuators. The thermoacoustic stability is given by the linear growth rate, which results from the combination of the acoustic damping and the coherent feedback from the flame. In this paper, it is shown that it is possible to quantify the acoustic damping of the system, and thus to separate its contribution to the linear growth rate from the one of the flame. This is achieved by post-processing in a simple way simultaneously acquired chemiluminescence and acoustic pressure data. It provides an additional approach to further unravel from observed time series the key mechanisms governing the system dynamics. This straightforward method is illustrated here using experimental data from a combustion chamber operated at several linearly stable and unstable operating conditions.

A method of energy production that is capable of low pollutant emissions is fundamental to one of the four pillars of NASA s Aeronautics Blueprint: Revolutionary Vehicles. Bubble combustion, a new engine technology currently being developed at Glenn Research Center promises to provide low emissions combustion in support of NASA s vision under the Emissions Element because it generates power, while minimizing the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxides (NOx), both known to be Greenhouse gases. and allows the use of alternative fuels such as corn oil, low-grade fuels, and even used motor oil. Bubble combustion is analogous to the inverse of spray combustion: the difference between bubble and spray combustion is that spray combustion is spraying a liquid in to a gas to form droplets, whereas bubble combustion involves injecting a gas into a liquid to form gaseous bubbles. In bubble combustion, the process for the ignition of the bubbles takes place on a time scale of less than a nanosecond and begins with acoustic waves perturbing each bubble. This perturbation causes the local pressure to drop below the vapor pressure of the liquid thus producing cavitation in which the bubble diameter grows, and upon reversal of the oscillating pressure field, the bubble then collapses rapidly with the aid of the high surface tension forces acting on the wall of the bubble. The rapid and violent collapse causes the temperatures inside the bubbles to soar as a result of adiabatic heating. As the temperatures rise, the gaseous contents of the bubble ignite with the bubble itself serving as its own combustion chamber. After ignition, this is the time in the bubble s life cycle where power is generated, and CO2, and NOx among other species, are produced. However, the pollutants CO2 and NOx are absorbed into the surrounding liquid. The importance of bubble combustion is that it generates power using a simple and compact device. We conducted a parametric study using CAVCHEM

The problem of thermoacoustic instabilities in the combustor of modern air-breathing engines has become a topic of concern, which occurs as a result of unstable coupling between the heat release fluctuations and acoustic perturbations. A three-dimensional thermoacoustic model including the distributed non-uniform heat source and non-uniform flow is developed based on the domain decomposition spectral method. The importance of distributed heat source on combustioninstabilities of longitudinal modes is analyzed with the help of a simplified geometrical configuration of combustor. The results show that the longitudinal distribution of heat source has a crucial effect on instabilities. In addition, the effect of circumferentially non-uniform heat source and non-uniform flow on longitudinal instabilities is also investigated. It can be found that the influence of circumferential non-uniformity can become significant on the lowest frequency instabilities, in particular, the oscillation frequency and growth rate are all evidently affected by temperature non-uniformity and time delay non-uniformity.

For sufficiently strong acoustic forcing in a standing wave field, subresonant size bubbles are predicted to be repelled from the pressure antinode. Single bubble sonoluminescence (SBSL) conditions in water do not allow the observation of this instability. This study investigates the possibility that increasing the viscosity of the host liquid can preferentially suppress shape instabilities of a bubble and allow SBSL experiments to be limited by the Bjerknes force instability.

Future aircraft engines must provide ultra-low emissions and high efficiency at low cost while maintaining the reliability and operability of present day engines. The demands for increased performance and decreased emissions have resulted in advanced combustor designs that are critically dependent on efficient fuel/air mixing and lean operation. However, all combustors, but most notably lean-burning low-emissions combustors, are susceptible to combustioninstabilities. These instabilities are typically caused by the interaction of the fluctuating heat release of the combustion process with naturally occurring acoustic resonances. These interactions can produce large pressure oscillations within the combustor and can reduce component life and potentially lead to premature mechanical failures. Active Combustion Control which consists of feedback-based control of the fuel-air mixing process can provide an approach to achieving acceptable combustor dynamic behavior while minimizing emissions, and thus can provide flexibility during the combustor design process. The NASA Glenn Active Combustion Control Technology activity aims to demonstrate active control in a realistic environment relevant to aircraft engines by providing experiments tied to aircraft gas turbine combustors. The intent is to allow the technology maturity of active combustion control to advance to eventual demonstration in an engine environment. Work at NASA Glenn has shown that active combustion control, utilizing advanced algorithms working through high frequency fuel actuation, can effectively suppress instabilities in a combustor which emulates the instabilities found in an aircraft gas turbine engine. Current efforts are aimed at extending these active control technologies to advanced ultra-low-emissions combustors such as those employing multi-point lean direct injection.

Implementation of active control in complex processes, of the type encountered in high Reynolds number mixing and combustion, is predicated upon the identification of the underlying mechanisms and the construction of reduced order models that capture their essential characteristics. The mechanisms of interest must be shown to be amenable to external actuations, allowing optimal control strategies to exploit the delicate interactions that lead to the desired outcome. Reduced order models are utilized in defining the form and requisite attributes of actuation, its relationship to the monitoring system and the relevant control algorithms embedded in a feedforward or a feedback loop. The talk will review recent work on active control of mixing in combustion devices in which strong shear zones concur with mixing, combustion stabilization and flame anchoring. The underlying mechanisms, e.g., stability of shear flows, formation/evolution of large vortical structures in separating and swirling flows, their mutual interactions with acoustic fields, flame fronts and chemical kinetics, etc., are discussed in light of their key roles in mixing, burning enhancement/suppression, and combustioninstability. Subtle attributes of combustion mechanisms are used to suggest the requisite control strategies.

The paper presents theoretical models developed to account for the heterogeneity of composite propellants in expressing the pressure-coupled combustion response function. It is noted that the model of Lengelle and Williams (1968) furnishes a viable basis to explain the effects of heterogeneity.

Low frequency combustioninstability, known as chugging, is consistently experienced during shutdown in the fuel and oxidizer preburners of the Space Shuttle Main Engines. Such problems always occur during the helium purge of the residual oxidizer from the preburner manifolds during the shutdown sequence. Possible causes and triggering mechanisms are analyzed and details in modeling the fuel preburner chug are presented. A linearized chugging model, based on the foundation of previous models, capable of predicting the chug occurrence is discussed and the predicted results are presented and compared to experimental work performed by NASA. Sensitivity parameters such as chamber pressure, fuel and oxidizer temperatures, and the effective bulk modulus of the liquid oxidizer are considered in analyzing the fuel preburner chug. The computer program CHUGTEST is utilized to generate the stability boundary for each sensitivity study and the region for stable operation is identified.

Combustioninstabilities are caused by the interaction of unsteady heat releases and acoustic waves. To mitigate combustioninstabilities, perforated liners, typically subjected to a low Mach number bias flow (a cooling flow through perforated holes), are fitted along the bounding walls of a combustor. They dissipate the acoustic waves by generating vorticity at the rims of perforated apertures. To investigate the absorption of plane waves by a perforated liner with bias flow, a time-domain numerical model of a cylindrical lined duct is developed. The liners' damping mechanism is characterized by using a time-domain "compliance." The development of such time-domain compliance is based on simplified or unsimplified Rayleigh conductivity. Numerical simulations of two different configurations of lined duct systems are performed by combining a 1D acoustic wave model with the compliance model. Comparison is then made between the results from the present models, and those from the experiment and the frequency-domain model of previous investigation [Eldredge and Dowling, J. Fluid Mech. 485, 307-335(2003)]. Good agreement is observed. This confirms that the present model can be used to simulate the propagation and dissipation of acoustic plane waves in a lined duct in real-time.

The addition of small amounts of hydrogen to the combustion of LOX/hydrocarbon propellants in large rocket booster engines has the potential to enhance the system stability. Programs being conducted to evaluate the effects of hydrogen on the combustion of LOX/hydrocarbon propellants at supercritical pressures are described. Combustioninstability has been a problem during the development of large hydrocarbon fueled rocket engines. At the higher combustion chamber pressures expected for the next generation of booster engines, the effect of unstable combustion could be even more destructive. The tripropellant engine cycle takes advantage of the superior cooling characteristics of hydrogen to cool the combustion chamber and a small amount of the hydrogen coolant can be used in the combustion process to enhance the system stability. Three aspects of work that will be accomplished to evaluate tripropellant combustion are described. The first is laboratory demonstration of the benefits through the evaluation of drop size, ignition delay and burning rate. The second is analytical modeling of the combustion process using the empirical relationship determined in the laboratory. The third is a subscale demonstration in which the system stability will be evaluated. The approach for each aspect is described and the analytical models that will be used are presented.

Early turbojet afterburners often suffered from high frequency acoustic pressure oscillations known as " screech ." These oscillations can be driven...pressure loss and highly efficient afterburners which can operate under all flight conditions without screech or rumble instabilities. The following...engines, high frequency pressure oscillations, known today as screech , plagued afterburners . Engine manufacturers found that cooling liners in the

Thermoacoustic devices are disclosed wherein, for some embodiments, a combustion zone provides heat to a regenerator using a mean flow of compressible fluid. In other embodiments, burning of a combustible mixture within the combustion zone is pulsed in phase with the acoustic pressure oscillations to increase acoustic power output. In an example embodiment, the combustion zone and the regenerator are thermally insulated from other components within the thermoacoustic device.

This effort extends into high frequency (>500 Hz), an earlier developed adaptive control algorithm for the suppression of thermo-acousticinstabilities in a liquidfueled combustor. The earlier work covered the development of a controls algorithm for the suppression of a low frequency (280 Hz) combustioninstability based on simulations, with no hardware testing involved. The work described here includes changes to the simulation and controller design necessary to control the high frequency instability, augmentations to the control algorithm to improve its performance, and finally hardware testing and results with an experimental combustor rig developed for the high frequency case. The Adaptive Sliding Phasor Averaged Control (ASPAC) algorithm modulates the fuel flow in the combustor with a control phase that continuously slides back and forth within the phase region that reduces the amplitude of the instability. The results demonstrate the power of the method - that it can identify and suppress the instability even when the instability amplitude is buried in the noise of the combustor pressure. The successful testing of the ASPAC approach helped complete an important NASA milestone to demonstrate advanced technologies for low-emission combustors.

It is shown that laser light can be anomalously absorbed with a moderate intensity laster (I{lambda}{sup 2}{approx}10{sup 14} W/cm{sup 2}-{mu}m{sup 2}) in a large scale, laser produced plasma. The heating regime, which is characterized by a relatively weak instability in a large region, is different from the regime studied previously, which is characterized by a strong instability in a narrow region. The two dimensional geometrical effect (lateral heating) has an important consequence on the anomalous electron heating. The characteristics of the IADI, and the anomalous absorption of the laser light were studied in a large scale, hot plasma applicable to OMEGA upgrade plasma. These results are important for the diagnostic application of the IADI.

Two dual-stream, heated jet, Compact Jet Engine Simulator (CJES) units are designed for wind tunnel acoustic experiments involving a Hybrid Wing Body (HWB) vehicle. The newly fabricated CJES units are characterized with a series of acoustic and flowfield investigations to ensure successful operation with minimal rig noise. To limit simulator size, consistent with a 5.8% HWB model, the CJES units adapt Ultra Compact Combustor (UCC) technology developed at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Stable and controllable operation of the combustor is demonstrated using passive swirl air injection and backpressuring of the combustion chamber. Combustioninstability tones are eliminated using nonuniform flow conditioners in conjunction with upstream screens. Through proper flow conditioning, rig noise is reduced by more than 20 dB over a broad spectral range, but it is not completely eliminated at high frequencies. The low-noise chevron nozzle concept designed for the HWB test shows expected acoustic benefits when installed on the CJES unit, and consistency between CJES units is shown to be within 0.5 dB OASPL.

This experimental study focuses on two important problems relevant to acoustic coupling with condensed phase transport processes, with special relevance to liquid rocket engine and airbreathing engine combustioninstabilities. The first part of this dissertation describes droplet combustion characteristics of various fuels during exposure to external acoustical perturbations. Methanol, ethanol, a liquid synthetic fuel derived from coal gasification via the Fischer-Tropsch process, and a blend of aviation fuel and the synthetic fuel are used. During acoustic excitation, the droplet is situated at or near a pressure node condition, where the droplet experiences the largest velocity perturbations, and at or near a pressure antinode condition, where the droplet is exposed to minimal velocity fluctuations. For unforced conditions, the values of the droplet burning rate constant K of the different fuels are consistent with data in the literature. The location of the droplet with respect to a pressure node or antinode also has a measurable effect on droplet burning rates, which are different for different fuels and in some cases are as high as 28% above the unforced burning rate value. Estimates of flame extinction due to acoustic forcing for different fuels are also obtained. The second part of this work consists of an experimental study on coaxial jet behavior under non-reactive, cryogenic conditions, with direct applications to flow mixing and unstable behavior characterization in liquid rocket engines. These experiments, conducted with nitrogen, span a range of outer to inner jet momentum flux ratios from 0.013 to 23, and explore subcritical, nearcritical and supercritical pressure conditions, with and without acoustic excitation, for two injector geometries. Acoustic forcing at 3 kHz is utilized to maximize the pressure fluctuations within the chamber acting on the jet, reaching maximum values of 4% of the mean chamber pressure. The effect of the magnitude and phase

In the past, liquid rocket engines (LRE) have experienced high-frequency combustioninstability, which impose an acoustic field in the combustion chamber. The acoustic field interacts with the fluid jets issuing from the injectors, thus altering the behavior of the jet compared to that of stable operation of the LRE. It is possible that this interaction could be a substantial feed back mechanism driving the combustioninstability. In order to understand the problem of combustioninstability, it is necessary to understand the interaction of the jet with the acoustic waves. From past combustioninstability studies of the liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellant combination in a shear-coaxial injector configuration, a design guideline of outer-to-inner jet velocity ratio greater than about ten was proposed in order to avoid high-frequency acousticcombustioninstability problems. However, no satisfactory physical explanation was provided. To promote this understanding, a cold-flow experimental investigation of a shear-coaxial jet interacting with a high-amplitude non-linear acoustic field was undertaken under chamber pressures extending into the supercritical regime. Liquid nitrogen (LN2) flowed from the inner tube of a coaxial injector while gaseous nitrogen (GN2) issued from its annular region. The injector fluids were directed into a chamber pressurized with gaseous nitrogen. The acoustic excitation was provided by an external driver capable of delivering acoustic field amplitudes up to 165 dB. The resonant modes of the chamber governed the two frequencies studied here, with the first two modes being about 3 and 5.2 kHz. High-speed images of the jet were taken with a Phantom CMOS camera. The so-called "dark core" of the jet is among the most salient features in the acquired images, and therefore, was defined and measured. The core length was found to decrease with increasing velocity and momentum flux ratio. Because of the ability of the camera to capture thousands of

The primary objective of this effort was to demonstrate active control of combustioninstabilities in a direct-injection gas turbine combustor that accurately simulates engine operating conditions and reproduces an engine-type instability. This report documents the second phase of a two-phase effort. The first phase involved the analysis of an instability observed in a developmental aeroengine and the design of a single-nozzle test rig to replicate that phenomenon. This was successfully completed in 2001 and is documented in the Phase I report. This second phase was directed toward demonstration of active control strategies to mitigate this instability and thereby demonstrate the viability of active control for aircraft engine combustors. This involved development of high-speed actuator technology, testing and analysis of how the actuation system was integrated with the combustion system, control algorithm development, and demonstration testing in the single-nozzle test rig. A 30 percent reduction in the amplitude of the high-frequency (570 Hz) instability was achieved using actuation systems and control algorithms developed within this effort. Even larger reductions were shown with a low-frequency (270 Hz) instability. This represents a unique achievement in the development and practical demonstration of active combustion control systems for gas turbine applications.

The authors made analysis of the IADI experiments previously made using OMEGA laser system. They obtained two important new results: the first direct observation of the epw excited by the Ion Acoustic Decay Instability, and the first study of the IADI in a plasma that approaches laser-fusion conditions, in the sense of having a density scale length of order 1 mm and an electron temperature, T{sub e}, in excess of 1 keV. Previous observations of the epw`s have been based on the second harmonic emission, from which little can be inferred because the emission is produced by unknown pairs of epw`s, integrated in a complicated way over wavenumber space and real space. In contrast, they have directly observed the epw by using the 90{degree}, collective Thomson scattering (CTS) of a UV laser (at the third harmonic of the pump) from the epw`s. Because the ratio of probe frequency to electron plasma frequency is only about three, the scattering is collective (i.e. k{sub epw}{lambda}{sub De} is small, where k{sub epw} is the epw wave number and {lambda}{sub De} is the Debye length),m even though the scattering angle is large. The electron temperature can then be deduced from the ion sound velocity, obtained from the measurement of the frequency at which growth is maximum at the scattering wavenumber.

The lecture covers mainly Sections 2.VIII and 3.VII of the book ''Accelerator Physics'' by S.Y. Lee, plus mode-coupling instabilities and chromaticity-driven head-tail instability. Besides giving more detailed derivation of many equations, simple interpretations of many collective instabilities are included with the intention that the phenomena can be understood more easily without going into too much mathematics. The notations of Lee's book as well as the e{sup jwt} convention are followed.

Combustioninstability in ramjets is a complex phenomenon that involve nonlinear interaction between acoustic waves, vortex motion and unsteady heat release in the combustor. To numerically simulate this 3-D, transient phenomenon, enormous computer resources (time, memory and disk storage) are required. Although current generation vector supercomputers are capable of providing adequate resources for simulations of this nature, their high cost and limited availability, makes such machines less than satisfactory for routine use. The primary focus of this study is to assess the feasibility of using highly parallel computer systems as a cost-effective alternative for conducting such unsteady flow simulations. Towards this end, a large-eddy simulation model for combustioninstability was implemented on the Intel iPSC/860 and a careful study was conducted to determine the benefits and the problems associated with the use of such machines for transient simulations. Details of this study along with the results obtained from the unsteady combustion simulations carried out on the iPSC/860 are discussed in this paper.

A feedback free fluidic oscillator was designed and integrated into a single element rocket combustor with the goal of suppressing longitudinal combustioninstabilities. The fluidic oscillator uses internal fluid dynamics to create an unsteady outlet jet at a specific frequency. An array of nine fluidic oscillators was tested to mimic modulated secondary oxidizer injection into the combustor dump plane. The combustor has a coaxial injector that uses gaseous methane and decomposed hydrogen peroxide with an overall O/F ratio of 11.7. A sonic choke plate on an actuator arm allows for continuous adjustment of the oxidizer post acoustics enabling the study of a variety of instability magnitudes. The fluidic oscillator unsteady outlet jet performance is compared against equivalent steady jet injection and a baseline design with no secondary oxidizer injection. At the most unstable operating conditions, the unsteady outlet jet saw a 67% reduction in the instability pressure oscillation magnitude when compared to the steady jet and baseline data. Additionally, computational fluid dynamics analysis of the combustor gives insight into the flow field interaction of the fluidic oscillators. The results indicate that open loop high frequency propellant modulation for combustion control can be achieved through fluidic devices that require no moving parts or electrical power to operate.

A review of the subject of combustion generated noise is presented. Combustion noise is an important noise source in industrial furnaces and process heaters, turbopropulsion and gas turbine systems, flaring operations, Diesel engines, and rocket engines. The state-of-the-art in combustion noise importance, understanding, prediction and scaling is presented for these systems. The fundamentals and available theories of combustion noise are given. Controversies in the field are discussed and recommendations for future research are made.

The microstructure of solar wind stream interaction regions is considered theoretically with emphasis on the role of several electrostatic kinetic instabilities which may be important within the stream interface and the compression region. Inside of 1 AU, the interface is likely to be stable against the electrostatic streaming instabilities considered. Between 1 and 2 AU, the interface will excite the magnetized ion-ion instability. The compression region is also found to be unstable beyond 1 AU where the modified two-stream instability, beam-cyclotron instability, and ion-acousticinstability are important in determining the structure of the compressive pulses as they evolve into forward and reverse shocks. It is concluded that the modified two-stream instability and beam-cyclotron instability predominately play a role in heating the electrons to the threshold for the ion-acousticinstability. Various electrostatic plasma waves, ranging in frequency from the lower-hybrid to harmonics of the electron cyclotron frequency, would be produced by these instabilities. Their signature should also be seen by high time resolution measurements of the temperature of the various plasma species.

Historically, the development of new industrial gas turbines has been primarily driven by the intent to achieve higher efficiency, lower operating costs and lower emissions. Higher efficiency and lower cost is obtained through higher turbine operating temperatures, while reduction in emissions is obtained by extending the lean operating limit of the combustor. However reduction in the lean stability limit of operation is limited greatly by the chemistry of the combustion process and by the occurrence of thermo-acousticinstabilities. Solar Turbines, CFD Research Corporation, and Los Alamos National Laboratory have teamed to advance the technology associated with laser-assisted ignition and flame stabilization, to a level where it could be incorporated onto a gas turbine combustor. The system being developed is expected to enhance the lean stability limit of the swirl stabilized combustion process and assist in reducing combustion oscillations. Such a system has the potential to allow operation at the ultra-lean conditions needed to achieve NO{sub x} emissions below 5 ppm without the need of exhaust treatment or catalytic technologies. The research effort was focused on analytically modeling laser-assisted flame stabilization using advanced CFD techniques, and experimentally demonstrating the technology, using a solid-state laser and low-cost durable optics. A pulsed laser beam was used to generate a plasma pool at strategic locations within the combustor flow field such that the energy from the plasma became an ignition source and helped maintain a flame at ultra lean operating conditions. The periodic plasma generation and decay was used to nullify the fluctuations in the heat release from the flame itself, thus decoupling the heat release from the combustor acoustics and effectively reducing the combustion oscillations. The program was built on an existing technology base and includes: extending LANL's existing laser stabilization experience to a sub

Combustioninstability in solid rocket motors and liquid engines is a complication that continues to plague designers and engineers. Many rocket systems experience violent fluctuations in pressure, velocity, and temperature originating from the complex interactions between the combustion process and gas dynamics. During sever cases of combustioninstability fluctuation amplitudes can reach values equal to or greater than the average chamber pressure. Large amplitude oscillations lead to damaged injectors, loss of rocket performance, damaged payloads, and in some cases breach of case/loss of mission. Historic difficulties in modeling and predicting combustioninstability has reduced most rocket systems experiencing instability into a costly fix through testing paradigm or to scrap the system entirely.

pressure oscillations. Unless the combustor is specially designed for such conditions, it can be destroyed by pressure excesses, severe heating , or...double base propellant charges that were ejected during nozzle release (due to over-pressure) were found to be heated in a way not attributable to any...Propellants are generally very poor heat conductors. Therefore, they can be heated rapidly to a surface temperature that leads to chemical reaction and flame at

P.R. Spalart , W.H. Jou, M. Strelets, and S.R. Allmaras . Comments on the feasibility of LES for wings on a hybrid RANS-LES approach. In 1st U.S. Air...anchor the predictions. A further issue is the importance of turbulence and combustion phenomena. Combustioninstability involves inherently unsteady uid...combustion typically occurs at sub-grid scales, appropriate turbulent combustion closure models may be needed for capturing the relationship between the

Manufacturers of commercial, power-generating, gas turbine engines continue to develop combustors that produce lower emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO x) in order to meet the environmental standards of governments around the world. Lean, premixed combustion technology is one technique used to reduce NOx emissions in many current power and energy generating systems. However, lean, premixed combustors are susceptible to thermo-acoustic oscillations, which are pressure and heat-release fluctuations that occur because of a coupling between the combustion process and the natural acoustic modes of the system. These pressure oscillations lead to premature failure of system components, resulting in very costly maintenance and downtime. Therefore, a great deal of work has gone into developing methods to prevent or eliminate these combustioninstabilities. This dissertation presents the results of a theoretical and experimental investigation of a novel Fuel System Tuner (FST) used to damp detrimental combustion oscillations in a gas turbine combustor by changing the fuel supply system impedance, which controls the amplitude and phase of the fuel flowrate. When the FST is properly tuned, the heat release oscillations resulting from the fuel-air ratio oscillations damp, rather than drive, the combustor acoustic pressure oscillations. A feasibility study was conducted to prove the validity of the basic idea and to develop some basic guidelines for designing the FST. Acoustic models for the subcomponents of the FST were developed, and these models were experimentally verified using a two-microphone impedance tube. Models useful for designing, analyzing, and predicting the performance of the FST were developed and used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the FST. Experimental tests showed that the FST reduced the acoustic pressure amplitude of an unstable, model, gas-turbine combustor over a wide range of operating conditions and combustor configurations. Finally, combustor

An experimental study of a novel flameless combustor for gas turbine engines is presented. Flameless combustion is characterized by distributed flame and even temperature distribution for high preheat air temperature and large amount of recirculating low oxygen exhaust gases. Extremely low emissions of NOx, CO, and UHC are reported. Measurements of the flame chemiluminescence, CO and NOx emissions, acoustic pressure, temperature and velocity fields as a function of the preheat temperature, inlet air mass flow rate, exhaust nozzle contraction ratio, and combustor chamber diameter are described. The data indicate that larger pressure drop promotes flameless combustion and low NOx emissions at the same flame temperature. High preheated temperature and flow rates also help in forming stable combustion and therefore are favorable for flameless combustion.

... search IRSA's site Unique Hits since January 2003 Acoustic Neuroma Click Here for Acoustic Neuroma Practice Guideline ... to microsurgery. One doctor's story of having an acoustic neuroma In August 1991, Dr. Thomas F. Morgan ...

Progress in the field of computational combustion over the past 50 years is reviewed. Particular attention is given to those classes of models that are common to most system modeling efforts, including fluid dynamics, chemical kinetics, liquid sprays, and turbulent flame models. The developments in combustion modeling are placed into the time-dependent context of the accompanying exponential growth in computer capabilities and Moore's Law. Superimposed on this steady growth, the occasional sudden advances in modeling capabilities are identified and their impacts are discussed. Integration of submodels into system models for spark ignition, diesel and homogeneous charge, compression ignition engines, surface and catalytic combustion, pulse combustion, and detonations are described. Finally, the current state of combustion modeling is illustrated by descriptions of a very large jet lifted 3D turbulent hydrogen flame with direct numerical simulation and 3D large eddy simulations of practical gas burner combustion devices.

The content spans from simple thermodynamics of the combustion engine to complex models for the description of the air/fuel mixture, ignition, combustion and pollutant formation considering the engine periphery of petrol and diesel engines. Thus the emphasis of the book is on the simulation models and how they are applicable for the development of modern combustion engines. Computers can be used as the engineers testbench following the rules and recommendations described here.

dynamics of tneoscillatory combustion of acetaldehyde in a CSTR upon reactant input rates. Under our conOitions, the period of the oscillation is...found to be more strongly dependent upon tne acetaldehyde input rate than the oxygen input rate. These results are compared with calculations made with a...instabilities. 1. Combustion reactions under cool flame conditions. Effects of non-equimolar reactant flux on the oscillatory oxidation of acetaldehyde . Some

The in-house combustion research program at METC is an integral part of many METC activities, providing support to METC product teams, project managers, and external industrial and university partners. While the majority of in-house combustion research in recent years has been focussed on the lean premixed combustion of natural gas fuel for Advanced Turbine Systems (ATS) applications, increasing emphasis is being placed on issues of syngas combustion, as the time approaches when the ATS and coal-fired power systems programs will reach convergence. When the METC syngas generator is built in 1996, METC will have the unique combination of mid-scale pressurized experimental facilities, a continuous syngas supply with variable ammonia loading, and a team of people with expertise in low-emissions combustion, chemical kinetics, combustion modeling, combustion diagnostics, and the control of combustioninstabilities. These will enable us to investigate such issues as the effects of pressure, temperature, and fuel gas composition on the rate of conversion of fuel nitrogen to NOx, and on combustioninstabilities in a variety of combustor designs.

Unlike the combustion of homogeneous gas mixtures, there are practically no reliable fundamental data (i.e., laminar burning velocity, flammability limits, quenching distance, minimum ignition energy) for the combustion of heterogeneous dust suspensions. Even the equilibrium thermodynamic data such as the constant pressure volume combustion pressure and the constant pressure adiabatic flame temperature are not accurately known for dust mixtures. This is mainly due to the problem of gravity sedimentation. In normal gravity, turbulence, convective flow, electric and acoustic fields are required to maintain a dust in suspension. These external influences have a dominating effect on the combustion processes. Microgravity offers a unique environment where a quiescent dust cloud can in principle be maintained for a sufficiently long duration for almost all combustion experiments (dust suspensions are inherently unstable due to Brownian motion and particle aggregation). Thus, the microgravity duration provided by drop towers, parabolic flights, and the space shuttle, can all be exploited for different kinds of dust combustion experiments. The present paper describes some recent studies on microgravity combustion of dust suspension carried out on the KC-135 and the Caravelle aircraft. The results reported are obtained from three parabolic flight campaigns.

We examine the non-linear dynamics of the transverse modes of combustion-driven acousticinstability in a liquid-propellant rocket engine. Triggering can occur, whereby small perturbations from mean conditions decay, while larger disturbances grow to a limit-cycle of amplitude that may compare to the mean pressure. For a deterministic perturbation, the system is also deterministic, computed by coupled finite-volume solvers at low computational cost for a single realization. The randomness of the triggering disturbance is captured by treating the injector flow rates, local pressure disturbances, and sudden acceleration of the entire combustion chamber as random variables. The combustor chamber with its many sub-fields resulting from many injector ports may be viewed as a multi-scale complex system wherein the developing acoustic oscillation is the emergent structure. Numerical simulation of the resulting stochastic PDE system is performed using the polynomial chaos expansion method. The overall probability of unstable growth is assessed in different regions of the parameter space. We address, in particular, the seven-injector, rectangular Purdue University experimental combustion chamber. In addition to the novel geometry, new features include disturbances caused by engine acceleration and unsteady thruster nozzle flow.

The management of combustion dynamics in gas turbine combustors has become more challenging as strict NOx/CO emission standards have led to engine operation in a narrow, lean regime. While premixed or partially premixed combustor configurations such as the Lean Premixed Pre-vaporized (LPP), Rich Quench Lean burn (RQL), and Lean Direct Injection (LDI) have shown a potential for reduced NOx emissions, they promote a coupling between acoustics, hydrodynamics and combustion that can lead to combustioninstabilities. These couplings can be quite complex, and their detailed understanding is a pre-requisite to any engine development program and for the development of predictive capability for combustioninstabilities through high-fidelity models. The overarching goal of this project is to assess the capability of high-fidelity simulation to predict combustion dynamics in low-emissions gas turbine combustors. A prototypical lean-direct-inject combustor was designed in a modular configuration so that a suitable geometry could be found by test. The combustor comprised a variable length air plenum and combustion chamber, air swirler, and fuel nozzle located inside a subsonic venturi. The venturi cross section and the fuel nozzle were consistent with previous studies. Test pressure was 1 MPa and variables included geometry and acoustic resonance, inlet temperatures, equivalence ratio, and type of liquid fuel. High-frequency pressure measurements in a well-instrumented metal chamber yielded frequencies and mode shapes as a function of inlet air temperature, equivalence ratio, fuel nozzle placement, and combustor acoustic resonances. The parametric survey was a significant effort, with over 105 tests on eight geometric configurations. A good dataset was obtained that could be used for both operating-point-dependent quantitative comparisons, and testing the ability of the simulation to predict more global trends. Results showed a very strong dependence of instability amplitude on

The feedback free fluidic oscillator uses the unsteady nature of two colliding jets to create a single oscillating outlet jet with a wide sweep angle. These devices have the potential to provide additional combustion control, boundary layer control, thrust vectoring, and industrial flow deflection. Two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics, CFD, was used to analyze the jet oscillation frequency over a range of operating conditions and to determine the effect that geometric changes in the oscillator design have on the frequency. Results presented illustrate the changes in jet oscillation frequency with gas type, gas temperature, operating pressure, pressure ratio across the oscillator, aspect ratio of the oscillator, and the frequency trends with various changes to the oscillator geometry. A fluidic oscillator was designed and integrated into single element rocket combustor with the goal of suppressing longitudinal combustioninstabilities. An array of nine fluidic oscillators was tested to mimic modulated secondary oxidizer injection into the dump plane using 15% of the oxidizer flow. The combustor has a coaxial injector that uses gaseous methane and decomposed hydrogen peroxide at an O/F of 11.66. A sonic choke plate on an actuator arm allows for continuous adjustment of the oxidizer post acoustics for studying a variety of instability magnitudes. The fluidic oscillator unsteady outlet jet performance is compared with equivalent steady jet injection and a baseline design with no secondary oxidizer injection. At the most unstable operating conditions, the unsteady outlet jet saw a 60% reduction in the instability pressure oscillation magnitude when compared to the steady jet and baseline data. The results indicate open loop propellant modulation for combustion control can be achieved through fluidic devices that require no moving parts or electrical power to operate. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics, 3-D CFD, was conducted to determine the

In this project, an advanced computational software tool was developed for the design of low emission combustion systems required for Vision 21 clean energy plants. Vision 21 combustion systems, such as combustors for gas turbines, combustors for indirect fired cycles, furnaces and sequestrian-ready combustion systems, will require innovative low emission designs and low development costs if Vision 21 goals are to be realized. The simulation tool will greatly reduce the number of experimental tests; this is especially desirable for gas turbine combustor design since the cost of the high pressure testing is extremely costly. In addition, the software will stimulate new ideas, will provide the capability of assessing and adapting low-emission combustors to alternate fuels, and will greatly reduce the development time cycle of combustion systems. The revolutionary combustion simulation software is able to accurately simulate the highly transient nature of gaseous-fueled (e.g. natural gas, low BTU syngas, hydrogen, biogas etc.) turbulent combustion and assess innovative concepts needed for Vision 21 plants. In addition, the software is capable of analyzing liquid-fueled combustion systems since that capability was developed under a concurrent Air Force Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. The complex physics of the reacting flow field are captured using 3D Large Eddy Simulation (LES) methods, in which large scale transient motion is resolved by time-accurate numerics, while the small scale motion is modeled using advanced subgrid turbulence and chemistry closures. In this way, LES combustion simulations can model many physical aspects that, until now, were impossible to predict with 3D steady-state Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) analysis, i.e. very low NOx emissions, combustioninstability (coupling of unsteady heat and acoustics), lean blowout, flashback, autoignition, etc. LES methods are becoming more and more practical by linking together tens

Shock driven multiphase instabilities (SDMI) arise in many applications from dust production in supernovae to ejecta distribution in explosions. At the limit of small, fast reacting particles the instability evolves similar to the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability. However, as additional particle effects such as lag, phase change, and collisions become significant the required parameter space becomes much larger and the instability deviates significantly from the RM instability. In scramjet engines the SDMI arises during a cold start where liquid fuel droplets are injected and processed by shock and expansion waves. In this case the particle evaporation and mixing is important to starting and sustaining combustion, but the particles are large and slow to react, creating significant multiphase effects. This talk will examine multiphase mixing in scramjet relevant conditions in 3D multiphase hydrodynamic simulations using the FLASH code from the University of Chicago FLASH center.

This work examines the three main aspects of bluff-body stabilized flames: stationary combustion, lean blow-out, and thermo-acousticinstabilities. For the cases of stationary combustion and lean blow-out, an improved version of the Linear Eddy Model approach is used, while in the case of thermo-acousticinstabilities, the effect of boundary conditions on the predictions are studied. The improved version couples the Linear Eddy Model with the full-set of resolved scale Large Eddy Simulation equations for continuity, momentum, energy, and species transport. In traditional implementations the species equations are generally solved using a Lagrangian method which has some significant limitations. The novelty in this work is that the Eulerian species concentration equations are solved at the resolved scale and the Linear Eddy Model is strictly used to close the species production term. In this work, the improved Linear Eddy Model approach is applied to predict the flame properties inside the Volvo rig and it is shown to over-predict the flame temperature and normalized velocity when compared to experimental data using a premixed single step global propane reaction with an equivalence ratio of 0.65. The model is also applied to predict lean blow-out and is shown to predict a stable flame at an equivalence ratio of 0.5 when experiments achieve flame extinction at an equivalence ratio of 0.55. The improved Linear Eddy Model is, however, shown to be closer to experimental data than a comparable reactive flow simulation that uses laminar closure of the species source terms. The thermo-acoustic analysis is performed on a combustor rig designed at the Air Force Research Laboratory. The analysis is performed using a premixed single step global methane reaction for laminar reactive flow and shows that imposing a non-physical boundary condition at the rig exhaust will result in the suppression of acoustic content inside the domain and can alter the temperature contours in non

Drift Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities of a finite-beta plasma in equilibrium electric and magnetic fields which are perpendicular to each other are studied using two fluid equations. Three types of these instabilities are considered including the magnetosonic instability of a finite beta-homogeneous plasma, the electrostatic drift instability of an inhomogeneous low-beta plasma, and the magneto-acousticinstability of a high-beta inhomogeneous isothermal plasma. It is shown that the electric field has either stabilizing or destabilizing effect depending on conditions under consideration.

A laser produced high-Z plasma in which an energy balance is achieved due to radiation emission and radiative heat transfer supports ion acousticinstability. A linear dispersion relation is derived, and instability is compared to the radiation cooling instability [R. G. Evans, Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 27, 751 (1985)]. Under conditions of indirect drive fusion experiments, the driving term for the instability is the radiative heat flux and, in particular, the density dependence of the radiative heat conductivity. A specific example of thermal Bremsstrahlung radiation source has been considered. This instability may lead to plasma jet formation and anisotropic x-ray generation, thus affecting inertial confinement fusion related experiments.

In this project, we advanced knowledge of Ion Acoustic Decay on several fronts. In this project, we have developed and demonstrated the capability to perform experimental and theoretical studies of the Ion Acoustic Decay Instability. We have at the same time demonstrated an improved capability to do multichannel spectroscopy and Thomson scattering. We made the first observations of the time-resolved second harmonic emission at several angles simultaneously, and the first observations of the emission both parallel and perpendicular to the electric field of the laser light. We used Thomson scattering to make the first observations of the plasma waves driven by acoustic decay in a warm plasma with long density scale lengths. We also advanced both the linear and the nonlinear theory of this instability. We are thus prepared to perform experiments to address this mechanism as needed for applications.

Some results concerning nonlinear acoustics deduced from a comparison of nonlinear processes in optics and acoustics are discussed. An aspect of nonlinearity in acoustics connected with the dimensionality of the medium of propagation is emphasized and illustrated by the proof of static instability of an ideal linear solid. In addition a phenomenon, which can be called acoustical rectification by analogy with nonlinear optics, is propounded to measure the third order elastic constants. Its experimental consequences are predicted in a particular case.

The interface between two fluids of different density can experience instability when gravity acts normal to the surface. The relatively well known Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability results when the gravity is constant with a heavy fluid over a light fluid. An impulsive acceleration applied to the fluids results in the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability. The RM instability occurs regardless of the relative orientation of the heavy and light fluids. In many systems, the passing of a shock wave through the interface provides the impulsive acceleration. Both the RT and RM instabilities result in mixing at the interface. These instabilities arise in a diverse array of circumstances, including supernovas, oceans, supersonic combustion, and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The area with the greatest current interest in RT and RM instabilities is ICF, which is an attempt to produce fusion energy for nuclear reactors from BB-sized pellets of deuterium and tritium. In the ICF experiments conducted so far, RM and RT instabilities have prevented the generation of net-positive energy. The $4 billion National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is being constructed to study these instabilities and to attempt to achieve net-positive yield in an ICF experiment.

This project presents an innovative solution for active combustion control. Relative to the state of the art, this concept provides frequency modulation (greater than 1,000 Hz) in combination with high-amplitude modulation (in excess of 30 percent flow) and can be adapted to a large range of fuel injector sizes. Existing valves often have low flow modulation strength. To achieve higher flow modulation requires excessively large valves or too much electrical power to be practical. This active combustion control valve (ACCV) has high-frequency and -amplitude modulation, consumes low electrical power, is closely coupled with the fuel injector for modulation strength, and is practical in size and weight. By mitigating combustioninstabilities at higher frequencies than have been previously achieved (approximately 1,000 Hz), this new technology enables gas turbines to run at operating points that produce lower emissions and higher performance.

Theoretical and experimental investigations aimed at altering 'nature-prescribed' combustion rates in hydrogen/hydrocarbon reactions with (enriched) air are presented. The intent is to anchor flame zones in supersonic streams, and to ensure proper and controllable complete combustion in scramjets. The diagnostics are nonintrusive through IR thermograms and acoustic emissions in the control and free-radicals altered flame zones.

Ramjets are very sensitive to instabilities and their numerical predictions can only be addressed adequately by Large Eddy Simulation (LES). With this technique, solvers can be implicit or explicit and handle structured, unstructured or hybrid meshes, etc. Turbulence and combustion models are other sources of differences. The impact of these options is here investigated for the ONERA ramjet burner. To do so, two LES codes developed by ONERA and CERFACS compute one stable operating condition. Preliminary LES results of the two codes underline the overall robustness of LES. Mean flow features at the various critical sections are reasonably well predicted by both codes. Disagreement mainly appear in the chamber where combustion positions differ pointing to the importance of the combustion and subgrid mixing models. The two LES produce different energy containing motions. With CEDRE, a low frequency dominates while AVBP produces different ranges of low frequencies that can be linked with acoustic modes of the configuration. To cite this article: A. Roux et al., C. R. Mecanique 337 (2009).

instabilities These instabilities are characterized by either low frequency (i.e., rumble) or high frequency (i.e., screech ) pressure and velocity...in Lhe combusTor . In contrast, the high frequency screech occurs when one of the tangential acoustic modes of the combustor is excited (e.g., see...result in excessive vibrational loads on the system. On the other hand screech type instabilities result in an increase in heat transfer rates to

Lean-burning combustors are susceptible to combustioninstabilities. Additionally, due to non-uniformities in the fuel-air mixing and in the combustion process, there typically exist hot areas in the combustor exit plane. These hot areas limit the operating temperature at the turbine inlet and thus constrain performance and efficiency. Finally, it is necessary to optimize the fuel-air ratio and flame temperature throughout the combustor to minimize the production of pollutants. In recent years, there has been considerable activity addressing Active Combustion Control. NASA Glenn Research Center's Active Combustion Control Technology effort aims to demonstrate active control in a realistic environment relevant to aircraft engines. Analysis and experiments are tied to aircraft gas turbine combustors. Considerable progress has been shown in demonstrating technologies for CombustionInstability Control, Pattern Factor Control, and Emissions Minimizing Control. Future plans are to advance the maturity of active combustion control technology to eventual demonstration in an engine environment.

Microgravity is an environment with very weak gravitational effects. The Fluids and Combustion Facility (FCF) on the International Space Station (ISS) will support the study of fluid physics and combustion science in a long-duration microgravity environment. The Fluid Combustion Facility's design will permit both independent and remote control operations from the Telescience Support Center. The crew of the International Space Station will continue to insert and remove the experiment module, store and reload removable data storage and media data tapes, and reconfigure diagnostics on either side of the optics benches. Upon completion of the Fluids Combustion Facility, about ten experiments will be conducted within a ten-year period. Several different areas of fluid physics will be studied in the Fluids Combustion Facility. These areas include complex fluids, interfacial phenomena, dynamics and instabilities, and multiphase flows and phase change. Recently, emphasis has been placed in areas that relate directly to NASA missions including life support, power, propulsion, and thermal control systems. By 2006 or 2007, a Fluids Integrated Rack (FIR) and a Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) will be installed inside the International Space Station. The Fluids Integrated Rack will contain all the hardware and software necessary to perform experiments in fluid physics. A wide range of experiments that meet the requirements of the international space station, including research from other specialties, will be considered. Experiments will be contained in subsystems such as the international standard payload rack, the active rack isolation system, the optics bench, environmental subsystem, electrical power control unit, the gas interface subsystem, and the command and data management subsystem. In conclusion, the Fluids and Combustion Facility will allow researchers to study fluid physics and combustion science in a long-duration microgravity environment. Additional information is

driven mechanism for thermo-acousticcombustion dynamics can be categorized into two groups according to Mongia et al. (2003). First category, which...CONTRACT NUMBER Combustion Control in Industrial Multi-Swirl Stabilized Spray Combustor 02PR12898-01 5b. GRANT NUMBER N00014-02-1-0756 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT...ABSTRACT The focus of this study is to investigate the emission characteristics and combustion dynamics of multiple swirl spray combustors either in

An acoustic neuroma is a benign tumor that develops on the nerve that connects the ear to the brain. ... can press against the brain, becoming life-threatening. Acoustic neuroma can be difficult to diagnose, because the ...

The evolution of ion-acoustic turbulence is studied on the basis of a numerical solution of the nonstationary equation for in-acoustic waves. Consideration is given to conditions under which the excitation threshold of long-wave ion-acoustic oscillations is exceeded as the result of instability saturation due to quasi-linear relaxation of electrons on turbulent pulsations and the induced scattering of ions by the ion sound. Distributed spectra of ion-acoustic turbulence are established in the plasma under these conditions.

a national naval responsibility. Acoustic sensors on mobile, autonomous platforms will enable basic research topics on temporal and spatial...problem and acoustic navigation and communications within the context of distributed autonomous persistent undersea surveillance sensor networks...Acoustic sensors on mobile, autonomous platforms will enable basic research topics on temporal and spatial coherence and the description of ambient

The invention relates to a sealing device having an acoustic resonator. The acoustic resonator is adapted to create acoustic waveforms to generate a sealing pressure barrier blocking fluid flow from a high pressure area to a lower pressure area. The sealing device permits noncontacting sealing operation. The sealing device may include a resonant-macrosonic-synthesis (RMS) resonator.

The invention relates to a sealing device having an acoustic resonator. The acoustic resonator is adapted to create acoustic waveforms to generate a sealing pressure barrier blocking fluid flow from a high pressure area to a lower pressure area. The sealing device permits noncontacting sealing operation. The sealing device may include a resonant-macrosonic-synthesis (RMS) resonator.

This review describes major features of current research in renewable fuels derived from plants and from fatty acids. Recent and ongoing fundamental studies of biofuel molecular structure, oxidation reactions, and biofuel chemical properties are reviewed, in addition to combustion applications of biofuels in the major types of engines in which biofuels are used. Biofuels and their combustion are compared with combustion features of conventional petroleum-based fuels. Two main classes of biofuels are described, those consisting of small, primarily alcohol, fuels (particularly ethanol, n-butanol, and iso-pentanol) that are used primarily to replace or supplement gasoline and those derived from fatty acids and used primarily to replace or supplement conventional diesel fuels. Research efforts on so-called second- and third-generation biofuels are discussed briefly.

This review describes major features of current research in renewable fuels derived from plants and from fatty acids. Recent and ongoing fundamental studies of biofuel molecular structure, oxidation reactions, and biofuel chemical properties are reviewed, in addition to combustion applications of biofuels in the major types of engines in which biofuels are used. Biofuels and their combustion are compared with combustion features of conventional petroleum-based fuels. Two main classes of biofuels are described, those consisting of small, primarily alcohol, fuels (particularly ethanol, n-butanol, and iso-pentanol) that are used primarily to replace or supplement gasoline and those derived from fatty acids and used primarily to replace or supplement conventional diesel fuels. Research efforts on so-called second- and third-generation biofuels are discussed briefly.

This review describes major features of current research in renewable fuels derived from plants and from fatty acids. Recent and ongoing fundamental studies of biofuel molecular structure, oxidation reactions, and biofuel chemical properties are reviewed, in addition to combustion applications of biofuels in the major types of engines in which biofuels are used. Biofuels and their combustion are compared with combustion features of conventional petroleum-based fuels. Two main classes of biofuels are described, those consisting of small, primarily alcohol, fuels (particularly ethanol, n-butanol, and iso-pentanol) that are used primarily to replace or supplement gasoline and those derived from fatty acids and used primarily to replace or supplement conventional diesel fuels. As a result, research efforts on so-called second- and third-generation biofuels are discussed briefly.

This review describes major features of current research in renewable fuels derived from plants and from fatty acids. Recent and ongoing fundamental studies of biofuel molecular structure, oxidation reactions, and biofuel chemical properties are reviewed, in addition to combustion applications of biofuels in the major types of engines in which biofuels are used. Biofuels and their combustion are compared with combustion features of conventional petroleum-based fuels. Two main classes of biofuels are described, those consisting of small, primarily alcohol, fuels (particularly ethanol, n-butanol, and iso-pentanol) that are used primarily to replace or supplement gasoline and those derived from fatty acidsmore » and used primarily to replace or supplement conventional diesel fuels. As a result, research efforts on so-called second- and third-generation biofuels are discussed briefly.« less

There have been major advances in the theory of magnetic reconnection and of magnetic instability, with important implications for the observations, as follows: (1) Fast and slow magnetic shock waves are produced by the magnetohydrodynamics of reconnection and are potential particle accelerators. (2) The impulsive bursty regime of reconnection gives a rapid release of magnetic energy in a series of bursts. (3) The radiative tearing mode creates cool filamentary structures in the reconnection process. (4) The stability analyses imply that an arcade can become unstable when either its height or twist of plasma pressure become too great.

The acoustical and fluid dynamic facets of an excited premixed flame were studied experimentally to evaluate possibilities for development of a stabilizing closed-loop control system. The flame was analyzed as a nonlinear system which includes different subcomponents: acoustics, fluid dynamics, and chemical reaction. Identification of the acoustical and fluid dynamics subsystems is done by analyzing the transfer function, which was obtained by driving the system with both white-noise and a frequency-sweeping sine-wave. The features obtained by this analysis are compared to results of flow visualization and hot-wire flow-field and spectral measurements. The acoustical subsystem is determined by the resonant acoustic modes of the settling chamber. These modes are subsequently filtered and amplified by the flow shear layer, whose instability characteristics are dominated by the preferred mode frequency.

Current aircraft turbine fuels do not present a significant problem with fuel thermal stability. However, turbine fuels with broadened properties or nonpetroleum derived fuels may have reduced thermal stability because of their higher content of olefins, heteroatoms, and trace metals. Moreover, advanced turbine engines will increase the thermal stress on fuels because of their higher pressure ratios and combustion temperature. In recognition of the importance of this problem, NASA Lewis is currently engaged in a broadly based research effort to better understand the underlying causes of fuel thermal degradation. The progress and status of our various activities in this area are discussed. Topics covered include: nature of fuel instability and its temperature dependence, methods of measuring the instability, chemical mechanisms involved in deposit formation, and instrumental methods for characterizing fuel deposits. Finally, some preliminary thoughts on design approaches for minimizing the effects of lowered thermal stability are briefly discussed.

Instabilities in the Sheath-presheath regime are most important phenomena that can affect the plasma-wall interaction. These instabilities can modify the particle flow velocities and distribution functions in that regime. In this present work, instabilities exists in the sheath-presheath in a low temperature plasma are observed. Experiments are carried in single ion species argon plasma and multi ion species Ar-He plasma. Experiments are carried in a stainless steel chamber with filament discharge plasma. Sheath is produced around a stainless steel grid at center of the chamber. Fluctuations from the grid and cylindrical Langmuir probe are recorded. Langmuir probe is used to get the floating potential fluctuations from presheath and bulk plasma as well. In single ion species argon plasma, there are two instabilities observed namely ion-ion counter streaming instability through mesh grid and ion acousticinstability respectively arises in the presheath. In case of multi-ion Ar-He plasma, two stream instability also explored. The neutral pressure threshold for the sustain of these instabilities also observed.

Turbulent combustion is the dominant process in heat and power generating systems. Its most significant aspect is to enhance the burning rate and volumetric power density. Turbulent mixing, however, also influences the chemical rates and has a direct effect on the formation of pollutants, flame ignition and extinction. Therefore, research and development of modern combustion systems for power generation, waste incineration and material synthesis must rely on a fundamental understanding of the physical effect of turbulence on combustion to develop theoretical models that can be used as design tools. The overall objective of this program is to investigate, primarily experimentally, the interaction and coupling between turbulence and combustion. These processes are complex and are characterized by scalar and velocity fluctuations with time and length scales spanning several orders of magnitude. They are also influenced by the so-called {open_quotes}field{close_quotes} effects associated with the characteristics of the flow and burner geometries. The authors` approach is to gain a fundamental understanding by investigating idealized laboratory flames. Laboratory flames are amenable to detailed interrogation by laser diagnostics and their flow geometries are chosen to simplify numerical modeling and simulations and to facilitate comparison between experiments and theory.

Plasma boundary layers are susceptible to electrostatic instabilities driven by ion flows in presheaths and, when present, these instabilities can influence transport. In plasmas with a single species of positive ion, ion-acousticinstabilities are expected under conditions of low pressure and large electron-to-ion temperature ratio ({{T}e}/{{T}i}\\gg 1 ). In plasmas with two species of positive ions, ion-ion two-stream instabilities can also be excited. The stability phase-space is characterized using the Penrose criterion and approximate linear dispersion relations. Predictions for how these instabilities affect ion and electron transport in presheaths, including rapid thermalization due to instability-enhanced collisions and an instability-enhanced ion-ion friction force, are briefly reviewed. Recent experimental tests of these predictions are discussed along with research needs required for further validation. The calculated stability boundaries provide a guide to determine the experimental conditions at which these effects can be expected.

A regenerative combustion device having a combustion zone, and chemicals contained within the combustion zone, such as water, having a first equilibrium state, and a second combustible state. Means for transforming the chemicals from the first equilibrium state to the second combustible state, such as electrodes, are disposed within the chemicals. An igniter, such as a spark plug or similar device, is disposed within the combustion zone for igniting combustion of the chemicals in the second combustible state. The combustion products are contained within the combustion zone, and the chemicals are selected such that the combustion products naturally chemically revert into the chemicals in the first equilibrium state following combustion. The combustion device may thus be repeatedly reused, requiring only a brief wait after each ignition to allow the regeneration of combustible gasses within the head space.

Combustion experiments using arrays of droplets seek to provide a link between single droplet combustion phenomena and the behavior of complex spray combustion systems. Both single droplet and droplet array studies have been conducted in microgravity to better isolate the droplet interaction phenomena and eliminate or reduce the confounding effects of buoyancy-induced convection. In most experiments involving droplet arrays, the droplets are supported on fibers to keep them stationary and close together before the combustion event. The presence of the fiber, however, disturbs the combustion process by introducing a source of heat transfer and asymmetry into the configuration. As the number of drops in a droplet array increases, supporting the drops on fibers becomes less practical because of the cumulative effect of the fibers on the combustion process. To eliminate the effect of the fiber, several researchers have conducted microgravity experiments using unsupported droplets. Jackson and Avedisian investigated single, unsupported drops while Nomura et al. studied droplet clouds formed by a condensation technique. The overall objective of this research is to extend the study of unsupported drops by investigating the combustion of well-characterized drop clusters in a microgravity environment. Direct experimental observations and measurements of the combustion of droplet clusters would fill a large gap in our current understanding of droplet and spray combustion and provide unique experimental data for the verification and improvement of spray combustion models. In this work, the formation of drop clusters is precisely controlled using an acoustic levitation system so that dilute, as well as dense clusters can be created and stabilized before combustion in microgravity is begun. This paper describes the design and performance of the 1-g experimental apparatus, some preliminary 1-g results, and plans for testing in microgravity.

Combustion experiments using arrays of droplets seek to provide a link between single droplet combustion phenomena and the behavior of complex spray combustion systems. Both single droplet and droplet array studies have been conducted in microgravity to better isolate the droplet interaction phenomena and eliminate or reduce the effects of buoyancy-induced convection. In most experiments involving droplet arrays, the droplets are supported on fibers to keep them stationary and close together before the combustion event. The presence of the fiber, however, disturbs the combustion process by introducing a source of heat transfer and asymmetry into the configuration. As the number of drops in a droplet array increases, supporting the drops on fibers becomes less practical because of the cumulative effect of the fibers on the combustion process. To eliminate the effect of the fiber, several researchers have conducted microgravity experiments using unsupported droplets. Jackson and Avedisian investigated single, unsupported drops while Nomura et al. studied droplet clouds formed by a condensation technique. The overall objective of this research is to extend the study of unsupported drops by investigating the combustion of well-characterized drop clusters in a microgravity environment. Direct experimental observations and measurements of the combustion of droplet clusters would provide unique experimental data for the verification and improvement of spray combustion models. In this work, the formation of drop clusters is precisely controlled using an acoustic levitation system so that dilute, as well as dense clusters can be created and stabilized before combustion in microgravity is begun. While the low-gravity test facility is being completed, tests have been conducted in 1-g to characterize the effect of the acoustic field on the vaporization of single and multiple droplets. This is important because in the combustion experiment, the droplets will be formed and

The phenomenon of instability in pressurized molecular crystals is studied using the lattice-dynamics approach. General expressions for the elastic moduli are obtained taking into account both short-range and long-range (electrostatic) interactions within the framework of the quasi-harmonic approximation. The behaviour of a system under changing pressure and temperature conditions and the Born stability criteria are investigated. Two types of instabilities, dynamical and thermodynamical, associated with the elastic moduli are presented. The dynamical instability occurs when the instability of acoustic modes of the phonon Hamiltonian occurs in the q = 0 region. The nature of thermodynamical stability implies that the equilibrium state of the crystal becomes thermodynamically unstable with respect to a small homogeneous deformation of the crystal lattice when the Born stability criteria are violated for isothermal or adiabatic moduli. These types of instabilities are illustrated in a series of calculations for ice Ic using the SPC potential for water's interactions. The results show that one of the stability conditions for the isothermal (adiabatic) moduli 0953-8984/9/27/015/img7 is violated at 0953-8984/9/27/015/img8 kbar and, as a consequence, thermodynamical instability occurs. In contrast, the dynamical instability of the phonon spectrum occurs at a significantly higher pressure, about 20 kbar.

The goal of this program was to develop and demonstrate fuel injection technologies that will facilitate the development of cost-effective turbine engines for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants, while improving efficiency and reducing emissions. The program involved developing a next-generation multi-point injector with enhanced stability performance for lean premix turbine systems that burn hydrogen (H2) or synthesis gas (syngas) fuels. A previously developed injector that demonstrated superior emissions performance was improved to enhance static flame stability through zone staging and pilot sheltering. In addition, piezo valve technology was implemented to investigate the potential for enhanced dynamic stability through high-bandwidth modulation of the fuel supply. Prototype injector and valve hardware were tested in an atmospheric combustion facility. The program was successful in meeting its objectives. Specifically, the following was accomplished: Demonstrated improvement of lean operability of the Parker multi-point injector through staging of fuel flow and primary zone sheltering; Developed a piezo valve capable of proportional and high-bandwidth modulation of gaseous fuel flow at frequencies as high as 500 Hz; The valve was shown to be capable of effecting changes to flame dynamics, heat release, and acoustic signature of an atmospheric combustor. The latter achievement indicates the viability of the Parker piezo valve technology for use in future adaptively controlled systems for the mitigation of combustioninstabilities, particularly for attenuating combustion dynamics under ultra-lean conditions.

Analytical and computational techniques were developed to predict the stability behavior of liquid propellant rocket combustors using damping devices such as acoustic liners, slot absorbers, and injector face baffles. Models were developed to determine the frequency and decay rate of combustor oscillations, the spatial and temporal pressure waveforms, and the stability limits in terms of combustion response model parameters.

The overall objective of this project is to demonstrate pulse combination induced acoustic enhancement of coal ash agglomeration and sulfur capture at conditions typical of direct coal-fired turbines and PFBC hot gas cleanup. MTCI has developed an advanced compact pulse combustor island for direct coal-firing in combustion gas turbines. This combustor island comprises a coal-fired pulse combustor, a combined ash agglomeration and sulfur capture chamber (CAASCC), and a hot cyclone. In the MTCI proprietary approach, the pulse combustion-induced high intensity sound waves improve sulfur capture efficiency and ash agglomeration. The resulting agglomerates allow the use of commercial cyclones and achieve very high particulate collection efficiency. In the MTCI proprietary approach, sorbent particles are injected into a gas stream subjected to an intense acoustic field. The acoustic field serves to improve sulfur capture efficiency by enhancing both gas film and intra-particle mass transfer rates. In addition, the sorbent particles act as dynamic filter foci, providing a high density of stagnant agglomerating centers for trapping the finer entrained (in the oscillating flow field) fly ash fractions. A team has been formed with MTCI as the prime contractor and Penn State University and West Virginia University as subcontractors to MTCI. MTCI is focusing on hardware development and system demonstration, PSU is investigating and modeling acoustic agglomeration and sulfur capture, and WVU is studying aerovalve fluid dynamics. Results are presented from all three studies.

Low Swirl Injector (LSI) technology is a lean premixed combustion method that is being developed for fuel-flexible gas turbines. The objective of this study is to characterize the fuel effects and influences of combustor geometry on the LSI's overall acoustic signatures and flowfields. The experiments consist of 24 flames at atmospheric condition with bulk flows ranging between 10 and 18 m/s. The flames burn CH{sub 4} (at {phi} = 0.6 & 0.7) and a blend of 90% H{sub 2} - 10% CH{sub 4} by volume (at {phi} = 0.35 & 0.4). Two combustor configurations are used, consisting of a cylindrical chamber with and without a divergent quarl at the dump plane. The data consist of pressure spectral distributions at five positions within the system and 2D flowfield information measured by Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV). The results show that acoustic oscillations increase with U{sub 0} and {phi}. However, the levels in the 90% H{sub 2} flames are significantly higher than in the CH{sub 4} flames. For both fuels, the use of the quarl reduces the fluctuating pressures in the combustion chamber by up to a factor of 7. The PIV results suggest this to be a consequence of the quarl restricting the formation of large vortices in the outer shear layer. A Generalized Instability Model (GIM) was applied to analyze the acoustic response of baseline flames for each of the two fuels. The measured frequencies and the stability trends for these two cases are predicted and the triggered acoustic mode shapes identified.

This chapter provides an introduction to the physical and psycho-acoustic principles underlying the production and perception of the sounds of musical instruments. The first section introduces generic aspects of musical acoustics and the perception of musical sounds, followed by separate sections on string, wind and percussion instruments.

Instabilities of confined combustion systems are often discussed in terms of the Rayleigh criterion, which provides a necessary condition for unstable operation and is commonly used to distinguish driving and damping regions. The analysis is also carried out in some cases by making use of an acoustic energy balance in which the Rayleigh term acts as a source. The case of unconfined flames is less well documented but of importance in practical systems used in heating and drying. This study is motivated by problems of self-sustained oscillations of radiant burners for domestic or industrial processes and of various other types of open flames. Application of the Rayleigh criterion and of the balance of acoustic energy to oscillations arising in such unconfined systems is examined. The objective is to see if the Rayleigh condition is fulfilled and to show how the different perturbed variables are linked to each other to develop an unstable oscillation. These issues are investigated by experiments in two geometries. The first case relates to a single ''V''- or ''M''-shaped flame formed by a burner behaving like a Helmholtz resonator. The second geometry features a collection of conical flames (CCF) established by a multipoint injector. This system is fed by a manifold that features a set of plane modes and resonates like an organ pipe at frequencies corresponding to odd multiples of the quarter wave. The Rayleigh criterion and a related result written in the form of an acoustic energy balance are used to define conditions of instability. A link is established between the pressure signal radiated by the burner and the total heat release rate perturbation yielding the phase lag between these two variables and providing conditions for unstable operation. Systematic experiments carried out in the two burner geometries and model predictions are in good agreement indicating that the Rayleigh source term is positive and that the criterion is well fulfilled by the wavefield

Instabilities of confined combustion systems are often discussed in terms of the Rayleigh criterion, which provides a necessary condition for unstable operation and is commonly used to distinguish driving and damping regions. The analysis is also carried out in some cases by making use of an acoustic energy balance in which the Rayleigh term acts as a source. The case of unconfined flames is less well documented but of importance in practical systems used in heating and drying. This study is motivated by problems of self-sustained oscillations of radiant burners for domestic or industrial processes and of various other types of open flames. Application of the Rayleigh criterion and of the balance of acoustic energy to oscillations arising in such unconfined systems is examined. The objective is to see if the Rayleigh condition is fulfilled and to show how the different perturbed variables are linked to each other to develop an unstable oscillation. These issues are investigated by experiments in two geometries. The first case relates to a single ''V''- or ''M''-shaped flame formed by a burner behaving like a Helmholtz resonator. The second geometry features a collection of conical flames (CCF) established by a multipoint injector. This system is fed by a manifold that features a set of plane modes and resonates like an organ pipe at frequencies corresponding to odd multiples of the quarter wave. The Rayleigh criterion and a related result written in the form of an acoustic energy balance are used to define conditions of instability. A link is established between the pressure signal radiated by the burner and the total heat release rate perturbation yielding the phase lag between these two variables and providing conditions for unstable operation. Systematic experiments carried out in the two burner geometries and model predictions are in good agreement indicating that the Rayleigh source term is positive and that the criterion is well fulfilled by the wavefield

This thesis describes an experimental investigation of the flame transfer function between flow disturbances and heat release oscillations in lean, premixed combustors. This research effort was motivated by the fact that modern gas turbines, operating fuel lean to minimize exhaust emissions, are susceptible to self-excited combustion oscillations. These instabilities generally occur when the unsteady combustion process couples with the acoustic modes of the combustion chamber. The resultant flow and structural vibrations can substantially reduce hot section part life. As such, avoiding operating regimes where high dynamics occur often requires operating at lower power outputs and/or higher pollutant emissions than the turbine is otherwise capable. This work demonstrated nonlinearities in the chemiluminescence response at large amplitude velocity oscillations in a turbulent, swirling flame. It is observed that the nonlinear flame response can exhibit a variety of behaviors, both in the shape of the response curve and the forcing amplitude at which nonlinearity is first observed depending on the operating conditions of the combustor. The phase between the flow oscillations and heat release is also seen to have substantial amplitude dependence. In addition, the interactions between the fundamental frequency and the higher and subharmonics of the measured signals can significantly influence the flame as well as the frequency response of the system. The nonlinear flame dynamics are governed by different mechanisms in different frequency and flowrate regimes. Three mechanisms, vortex rollup, unsteady flame liftoff, and parametric instability, are identified to influence the nonlinear flame response in these combustors. Analysis of the results shows that the mechanisms responsible for nonlinearity m the flame response are influenced by the Strouhal number, the mean velocity at the combustor dump plane, and the ratio of the oscillating velocity amplitude to the laminar

Using the self-excited dust acoustic wave as a platform, we demonstrate experimental observation of self-excited fluctuating acoustic vortex pairs with ± 1 topological charges through spontaneous waveform undulation in defect-mediated turbulence for three-dimensional traveling nonlinear longitudinal waves. The acoustic vortex pair has helical waveforms with opposite chirality around the low-density hole filament pair in xyt space (the xy plane is the plane normal to the wave propagation direction). It is generated through ruptures of sequential crest surfaces and reconnections with their trailing ruptured crest surfaces. The initial rupture is originated from the amplitude reduction induced by the formation of the kinked wave crest strip with strong stretching through the undulation instability. Increasing rupture causes the separation of the acoustic vortex pair after generation. A similar reverse process is followed for the acoustic vortex annihilating with the opposite-charged acoustic vortex from the same or another pair generation.

The traditional task of room acoustics is to create or formulate conditions which ensure the best possible propagation of sound in a room from a sound source to a listener. Thus, objects of room acoustics are in particular assembly halls of all kinds, such as auditoria and lecture halls, conference rooms, theaters, concert halls or churches. Already at this point, it has to be pointed out that these conditions essentially depend on the question if speech or music should be transmitted; in the first case, the criterion for transmission quality is good speech intelligibility, in the other case, however, the success of room-acoustical efforts depends on other factors that cannot be quantified that easily, not least it also depends on the hearing habits of the listeners. In any case, absolutely "good acoustics" of a room do not exist.

The preferred mode of instability was investigated in an axisymmetric air jet of moderate Reynolds number. Natural instabilities are shown to scale with local shear-layer thickness and the preferred mode is shown to be a shear-layer instability. The spatial evolution of the preferred mode was examined by exciting the flow acoustically and then mapping the phase-locked velocity fluctuations. Throughout the potential core region the phase-locked profiles are shown to agree with the eigensolutions of the Orr-Sommerfeld stability equations provided the calculations are based on measured, mean velocity profiles. The excitation intensity was varied from low levels, where the flow was merely tagged, to high levels where the mean flow was substantially distorted, and over that range of excitation there was no apparent deterioration in the agreement with stability predictions.

This research is concerned with the development and use of sensitivity analysis tools to probe the response of dependent variables to model input variables. Sensitivity analysis is important at all levels of combustion modeling. This group`s research continues to be focused on elucidating the interrelationship between features in the underlying potential energy surface (obtained from ab initio quantum chemistry calculations) and their responses in the quantum dynamics, e.g., reactive transition probabilities, cross sections, and thermal rate coefficients. The goals of this research are: (i) to provide feedback information to quantum chemists in their potential surface refinement efforts, and (ii) to gain a better understanding of how various regions in the potential influence the dynamics. These investigations are carried out with the methodology of quantum functional sensitivity analysis (QFSA).

A JANNAF Combustion Subcommittee Technology Awareness Seminar on Active Combustion Control (ACC) in Propulsion Systems' was held 12 November 1997 at the NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC), Cleveland, Ohio. The objectives of the seminar were: 1) Define the need and potential of ACC to meet future requirements for gas turbines and ramjets; 2) Explain general principles of ACC and discuss recent successes to suppress combustioninstabilities, increase combustion efficiency, reduce emission, and extend flammability limits; 3) Identify R&D barriers/needs for practical implementation of ACC; 4) Explore potential for improving coordination of future R&D activities funded by various government agencies. Over 40 individuals representing senior management from over 20 industry and government organizations participated. This document summarizes the presentations and findings of this seminar.

In this paper, a one dimensional premixed laminar methane flame is subjected to acoustic oscillations and studied. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate the effects of acoustic perturbations on the reaction rates of different species, with a view to their respective contribution to thermoacoustic instabilities. Acoustically transparent non reflecting boundary conditions are employed. The flame response has been studied with acoustic waves of different frequencies and amplitudes. The integral values of the reaction rates, the burning velocities and the heat release of the acoustically perturbed flame are compared with the unperturbed case. We found that the flame's sensitivity to acoustic perturbations is greatest when the wavelength is comparable to the flame thickness. Even in this case, the perturbations are stable with time. We conclude that acoustic fields acting on the chemistry do not contribute significantly to the emergence of large amplitude pressure oscillations. PMID:24376501

Several possible causes of turbine rotor instability are discussed and the related design features of a wide range of turbomachinery types and sizes are considered. The instrumentation options available for detecting rotor instability and assessing its severity are also discussed.

Discusses the rationale of studying kinesics of affective instability, describes the phenonmenon of affective instability, examines the role of kinesics in the overall process of communication, and presents three case studies. (Author/AM)

Resonant and acoustic wave devices have been researched for several decades for application in the gravimetric sensing of a variety of biological and chemical analytes. These devices operate by coupling the measurand (e.g. analyte adsorption) as a modulation in the physical properties of the acoustic wave (e.g. resonant frequency, acoustic velocity, dissipation) that can then be correlated with the amount of adsorbed analyte. These devices can also be miniaturized with advantages in terms of cost, size and scalability, as well as potential additional features including integration with microfluidics and electronics, scaled sensitivities associated with smaller dimensions and higher operational frequencies, the ability to multiplex detection across arrays of hundreds of devices embedded in a single chip, increased throughput and the ability to interrogate a wider range of modes including within the same device. Additionally, device fabrication is often compatible with semiconductor volume batch manufacturing techniques enabling cost scalability and a high degree of precision and reproducibility in the manufacturing process. Integration with microfluidics handling also enables suitable sample pre-processing/separation/purification/amplification steps that could improve selectivity and the overall signal-to-noise ratio. Three device types are reviewed here: (i) bulk acoustic wave sensors, (ii) surface acoustic wave sensors, and (iii) micro/nano-electromechanical system (MEMS/NEMS) sensors. PMID:27365040

Resonant and acoustic wave devices have been researched for several decades for application in the gravimetric sensing of a variety of biological and chemical analytes. These devices operate by coupling the measurand (e.g. analyte adsorption) as a modulation in the physical properties of the acoustic wave (e.g. resonant frequency, acoustic velocity, dissipation) that can then be correlated with the amount of adsorbed analyte. These devices can also be miniaturized with advantages in terms of cost, size and scalability, as well as potential additional features including integration with microfluidics and electronics, scaled sensitivities associated with smaller dimensions and higher operational frequencies, the ability to multiplex detection across arrays of hundreds of devices embedded in a single chip, increased throughput and the ability to interrogate a wider range of modes including within the same device. Additionally, device fabrication is often compatible with semiconductor volume batch manufacturing techniques enabling cost scalability and a high degree of precision and reproducibility in the manufacturing process. Integration with microfluidics handling also enables suitable sample pre-processing/separation/purification/amplification steps that could improve selectivity and the overall signal-to-noise ratio. Three device types are reviewed here: (i) bulk acoustic wave sensors, (ii) surface acoustic wave sensors, and (iii) micro/nano-electromechanical system (MEMS/NEMS) sensors.

Increased emphasis is placed on fundamental and generic research at Lewis Research Center with less systems development efforts. This is especially true in combustion research, where the study of combustion fundamentals has grown significantly in order to better address the perceived long term technical needs of the aerospace industry. The main thrusts for this combustion fundamentals program area are as follows: analytical models of combustion processes, model verification experiments, fundamental combustion experiments, and advanced numeric techniques.

The objective of this activity is to support the Office of Fossil Energy in executing research on coal combustion science. This activity consists of basic research on coal combustion that supports both the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center (PETC) Direct Utilization Advanced Research and Technology Development Program, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) Coal Combustion Science Project. Specific tasks include: coal devolatilization, coal char combustion, and fate of mineral matter during coal combustion. 91 refs., 40 figs., 9 tabs.

In the framework of the three-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation the instability of two-dimensional solitons and vortices is demonstrated. The soliton instability can be considered as the analog of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili instability (Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 192, 753 (1970) [Sov. Phys. Dokl. 15, 539 (1970)]) of one-dimensional acoustic solitons in media with positive dispersion. For large distances between the vortices, this instability transforms into the Crow instability [AIAA J. 8, 2172 (1970)] of two vortex filaments with opposite circulations.

This patent describes a combustible particulate fired heater. It consists of: a combustion chamber defined by upright side walls extending between open top and bottom ends; an enclosure surrounding the combustion chamber; a retort within the combustion chamber adjacent the bottom end and having a lower particulate receiving end and an upper open end; feed conveyor means leading through the enclosure to the retort for delivering metered quantities of combustible particulates to the lower particulate receiving end of the retort; primary combustion air supply means having a primary combustion air supply manifold extending at least partially about the upper open end of the retort; primary air control means on the primary air supply means for selectively allowing entry of combustion air from outside the enclosure in to the retort; secondary combustion air supply means including a secondary air supply manifold within the combustion chamber above the primary combustion air supply manifold; secondary air control means independent of the primary air control means for selectively allowing entry of secondary air from outside the enclosure to an area within the combustion chamber above the retort; an exhaust duct opening into the enclosure; and vacuum means connected to the exhaust duct for producing a pressure differential between the area confined by the enclosure and the ambient atmosphere such that ambient air is drawn through at least one of the combustion air supply means to induce a high level of gasification and to support combustion at the retort and for drawing combustion exhaust gases out through the exhaust duct.

The dielectric permittivity tensor of a magnetoactive current-driven plasma is obtained by employing the kinetic theory based on the Vlasov equation and Lorentz transformation formulas with an emphasize on the q-nonextensive statistics. By deriving the q-generalized dispersion relation of the low frequency modes in this plasma system, the possibility and properties of filamentation and ion acousticinstabilities are then studied. It is shown that the occurrence and the growth rate of these instabilities depend strongly on the nonextensive parameters, external magnetic field strength, and drift velocity. It is observed that the growth rate of ion acousticinstability is affected by the magnetic field strength much more than that of the filamentation instability in the low frequency range. The external magnetic field facilitates the development of the ion-acousticinstability. It is also shown that the filamentation is the dominant instability only for the high value of drift velocity.

An orifice element is commonly used in liquid rocket engine test facilities either as a flow metering device, a damper for acoustic resonance or to provide a large reduction in pressure over a very small distance in the piping system. While the orifice as a device is largely effective in stepping down pressure, it is also susceptible to a wake-vortex type instability that generates pressure fluctuations that propagate downstream and interact with other elements of the test facility resulting in structural vibrations. Furthermore in piping systems an unstable feedback loop can exist between the vortex shedding and acoustic perturbations from upstream components resulting in an amplification of the modes convecting downstream. Such was the case in several tests conducted at NASA as well as in the Ariane 5 strap-on P230 engine in a static firing test where pressure oscillations of 0.5% resulted in 5% thrust oscillations. Exacerbating the situation in cryogenic test facilities, is the possibility of the formation of vapor clouds when the pressure in the wake falls below the vapor pressure leading to a cavitation instability that has a lower frequency than the primary wake-vortex instability. The cavitation instability has the potential for high amplitude fluctuations that can cause catastrophic damage in the facility. In this paper high-fidelity multi-phase numerical simulations of an orifice element are used to characterize the different instabilities, understand the dominant instability mechanisms and identify the tonal content of the instabilities.

The presentation will cover the highlights of sludge, providing information as to where it comes from, projection of how much more is expected, what is sludge, what can be done with them, and finally focus in one combustion technology that can be utilized and applied to recycle sludge. The author is with Gotaverken Energy Systems Inc. where for the past 100 years they have been involved in the recovery of chemicals in chemical pulp mills. One week ago, our name was changed to Kvaerner Pulping Inc. to better reflect our present make-up which is a combination of Kamyr AB (suppliers of proprietary highly engineered totally chlorine free chemical pulp manufacturing systems, including digesters, O{sub 2} delignification systems, and bleach plant systems) and Goetaverken. Sludges that we are concerned with derive from several sources within chemical pulp mills such as: such as primary clarifier sludges, secondary clarifier sludges, and most recently those sludges derived from post consumer paper and board recycle efforts including de-inking and those from the thermal mechanical pulping processes. These sludges have been classified as non-hazardous therefore, residue can be landfilled, but the volumes involved are growing at an alarming rate.

Sonotech, Inc. (Sonotech) of Atlanta, Georgia, has developed a pulse combustion burner technology that claims to offer benefits when applied in a variety of combustion processes. The technology incorporates a combustor that can be tuned to induce large-amplitude acoustic or soni...

Experimental investigations of combustion in rotating (swirling) flow have shown that the mixing and combustion processes were accelerated, flame length and noise levels significantly decreased, and flame stability increased relative to that obtained without rotation. Unsteady burning accompanied by a pulsating flame, violent fluctuating jet, and intense noise present in straight flow burning were not present in rotating flow burning. Correlations between theory and experiment show good agreement. Such effects due to rotating flows could lead to suppressing jet noise, improving combustion, reducing pollution, and decreasing aircraft engine size. Quantitative analysis of the aero-acoustic relationship and noise source characteristics are needed.-

This study presents a theoretical approach to analyze the influence of kappa distributed streaming ions and magnetized electrons on the plasma wave propagation in the presence of dust by employing two-potential theory. In particular, analytical expressions under certain conditions are derived for various modes of propagation comprising of kinetic Alfven wave streaming instability, two stream instability, and dust acoustic and whistler waves. A dispersion relation for kinetic Alfven-like streaming instability has been derived. The effects of dust particles and Lorentzian index on the growth rates and the threshold streaming velocity for the excitation of the instability are examined. The streaming velocity is observed to be destabilizing for slow motion and stabilizing for fast streaming motions. It is also observed that the presence of magnetic field and superthermal particles hinders the growth rate of instability. Possible applications to various space and astrophysical situations are discussed.

There is no definitive knowledge of which of several concurrent processes ultimately results in unstable combustion within liquid rocket chambers employing shear coaxial injectors. Possible explanations are a detrimental change in the atomization characteristics due to a decrease in the gas-to-liquid velocity ratio, a change in the gas side injector pressure drop allowing acoustic coupling to the propellant feed system or the disappearance of a stabilizing recirculation region at the base of the LOX post. The aim of this research effort is to investigate these proposed mechanisms under conditions comparable to actual engine operation. Spray characterization was accomplished with flash photography and planar laser imaging to examine the overall spray morphology and liquid jet breakup processes and with a PDPA to quantify the spatial distribution of droplet size and mean axial velocity. A simplified stability model based on the Rayleigh criterion was constructed for the flow dynamics occurring within the chamber and injector to evaluate the potential coupling between the chamber and injector acoustic modes and was supported by high frequency measurements of chamber and injector pressure oscillations. To examine recirculation within the LOX post recess, velocity measurements were performed in the recess region by means of LDV. Present experiments were performed under noncombusting conditions using LOX/GH2 stimulants at pressures up to 4 MPa.

A method to separate entropy induced noise from an acoustic pressure wave in an harmonically perturbed flow through a nozzle is presented. It is tested on an original experimental setup generating simultaneously acoustic and temperature fluctuations in an air flow that is accelerated by a convergent nozzle. The setup mimics the direct and indirect noise contributions to the acoustic pressure field in a confined combustion chamber by producing synchronized acoustic and temperature fluctuations, without dealing with the complexity of the combustion process. It allows generating temperature fluctuations with amplitude up to 10 K in the frequency range from 10 to 100 Hz. The noise separation technique uses experiments with and without temperature fluctuations to determine the relative level of acoustic and entropy fluctuations in the system and to identify the nozzle response to these forcing waves. It requires multi-point measurements of acoustic pressure and temperature. The separation method is first validated with direct numerical simulations of the nonlinear Euler equations. These simulations are used to investigate the conditions for which the separation technique is valid and yield similar trends as the experiments for the investigated flow operating conditions. The separation method then gives successfully the acoustic reflection coefficient but does not recover the same entropy reflection coefficient as predicted by the compact nozzle theory due to the sensitivity of the method to signal noises in the explored experimental conditions. This methodology provides a framework for experimental investigation of direct and indirect combustion noises originating from synchronized perturbations.

The physics of noise formation in an internal combustion engine is discussed. A dependence of the acoustical radiation on the engine operating process, its construction, and operational parameters, as well as on the degree of wear on its parts, has been established. An example of tests conducted on an internal combustion engine is provided. A system for cybernetic diagnostics for internal combustion engines by vibroacoustical parameters is diagrammed.

The Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space (CCACS) is planning a number of combustion experiments to be done on the International Space Station (ISS). These experiments will be conducted in two ISS facilities, the SpaceDRUMS™ Acoustic Levitation Furnace (ALF) and the Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) portion of the Fluids and Combustion Facility (FCF). The experiments are part of ongoing commercial projects involving flame synthesis of ceramic powders, catalytic combustion, water mist fire suppression, glass-ceramics for fiber and other applications and porous ceramics for bone replacements, filters and catalyst supports. Ground- and parabolic aircraft-based experiments are currently underway to verify the scientific bases and to test prototype flight hardware. The projects have strong external support.

This report presents work carried out under contract DE-AC22-95PC95144 ''Combustion 2000 - Phase II.'' The goals of the program are to develop a coal-fired high performance power generation system (HIPPS) that is capable of: {lg_bullet} thermal efficiency (HHV) {ge} 47% {lg_bullet} NOx, SOx, and particulates {le} 10% NSPS (New Source Performance Standard) {lg_bullet} coal providing {ge} 65% of heat input {lg_bullet} all solid wastes benign {lg_bullet} cost of electricity {le} 90% of present plants Phase I, which began in 1992, focused on the analysis of various configurations of indirectly fired cycles and on technical assessments of alternative plant subsystems and components, including performance requirements, developmental status, design options, complexity and reliability, and capital and operating costs. Phase I also included preliminary R&D and the preparation of designs for HIPPS commercial plants approximately 300 MWe in size. Phase II, had as its initial objective the development of a complete design base for the construction and operation of a HIPPS prototype plant to be constructed in Phase III. As part of a descoping initiative, the Phase III program has been eliminated and work related to the commercial plant design has been ended. The rescoped program retained a program of engineering research and development focusing on high temperature heat exchangers, e.g. HITAF development (Task 2); a rescoped Task 6 that is pertinent to Vision 21 objectives and focuses on advanced cycle analysis and optimization, integration of gas turbines into complex cycles, and repowering designs; and preparation of the Phase II Technical Report (Task 8). This rescoped program deleted all subsystem testing (Tasks 3, 4, and 5) and the development of a site specific engineering design and test plan for the HIPPS prototype plant (Task 7). Work reported herein is from: {lg_bullet} Task 2.2.4 Pilot Scale Testing {lg_bullet} Task 2.2.5.2 Laboratory and Bench Scale Activities

Smart structures technology can be applied to amplified acoustic guitars to prevent instability resulting from acoustic feedback. This work presents a coupled model of the guitar dynamics and the acoustic feedback mechanism, and explains how a simple control loop using a piezoelectric ceramic actuator can be used to reduce the effects of acoustic feedback. In addition to model simulations, experimental results using a real system and a simple controller are presented. The results show that a significantly higher (7 dB) guitar output can be achieved before instability, without detrimentally affecting the amplified and unamplified guitar response.

The instability of rectangular jets is investigated using a vortex sheet model. It is shown that such jets support four linearly independent families of instability waves. Within each family there are infinitely many modes. A way to classify these modes according to the characteristics of their mode shapes or eigenfunctions is proposed. A parametric study of the instability wave characteristics has been carried out. A sample of the numerical results is reported here. It is found that the first and third modes of each instability wave family are corner modes. The pressure fluctuations associated with these instability waves are localized near the corners of the jet. The second mode, however, is a center mode with maximum fluctuations concentrated in the central portion of the jet flow. The center mode has the largest spatial growth rate. It is anticipated that as the instability waves propagate downstream the center mode would emerge as the dominant instability of the jet.

. To achieve these objectives requires a change from complete reliance of coal-fired systems on steam turbines (Rankine cycles) and moving forward to a combined cycle utilizing gas turbines (Brayton cycles) which offer the possibility of significantly greater efficiency. This is because gas turbine cycles operate at temperatures well beyond current steam cycles, allowing the working fluid (air) temperature to more closely approach that of the major energy source, the combustion of coal. In fact, a good figure of merit for a HIPPS design is just how much of the enthalpy from coal combustion is used by the gas turbine. The efficiency of a power cycle varies directly with the temperature of the working fluid and for contemporary gas turbines the optimal turbine inlet temperature is in the range of 2300-2500 F (1260-1371 C). These temperatures are beyond the working range of currently available alloys and are also in the range of the ash fusion temperature of most coals. These two sets of physical properties combine to produce the major engineering challenges for a HIPPS design. The UTRC team developed a design hierarchy to impose more rigor in our approach. Once the size of the plant had been determined by the choice of gas turbine and the matching steam turbine, the design process of the High Temperature Advanced Furnace (HITAF) moved ineluctably to a down-fired, slagging configuration. This design was based on two air heaters: one a high temperature slagging Radiative Air Heater (RAH) and a lower temperature, dry ash Convective Air Heater (CAH). The specific details of the air heaters are arrived at by an iterative sequence in the following order:-Starting from the overall Cycle requirements which set the limits for the combustion and heat transfer analysis-The available enthalpy determined the range of materials, ceramics or alloys, which could tolerate the temperatures-Structural Analysis of the designs proved to be the major limitation-Finally the commercialization

Wester- velt. [60] Streaming. In 1831, Michael Faraday [61] noted that currents of air were set up in the neighborhood of vibrating plates-the first... ducei in the case of a paramettc amy (from Berktay an Leahy 141). C’ "". k•, SEC 10.1 NONLINEAR ACOUSTICS 345 The principal results of their analysis

Lean combustion concepts for aircraft engine combustors are prone to combustioninstabilities. Mitigation of instabilities is an enabling technology for these low-emissions combustors. NASA Glenn Research Center s prior activity has demonstrated active control to suppress a high-frequency combustioninstability in a combustor rig designed to emulate an actual aircraft engine instability experience with a conventional, rich-front-end combustor. The current effort is developing further understanding of the problem specifically as applied to future lean-burning, very low-emissions combustors. A prototype advanced, low-emissions aircraft engine combustor with a combustioninstability has been identified and previous work has characterized the dynamic behavior of that combustor prototype. The combustor exhibits thermoacoustic instabilities that are related to increasing fuel flow and that potentially prevent full-power operation. A simplified, non-linear oscillator model and a more physics-based sectored 1-D dynamic model have been developed to capture the combustor prototype s instability behavior. Utilizing these models, the NASA Adaptive Sliding Phasor Average Control (ASPAC) instability control method has been updated for the low-emissions combustor prototype. Active combustioninstability suppression using the ASPAC control method has been demonstrated experimentally with this combustor prototype in a NASA combustion test cell operating at engine pressures, temperatures, and flows. A high-frequency fuel valve was utilized to perturb the combustor fuel flow. Successful instability suppression was shown using a dynamic pressure sensor in the combustor for controller feedback. Instability control was also shown with a pressure feedback sensor in the lower temperature region upstream of the combustor. It was also demonstrated that the controller can prevent the instability from occurring while combustor operation was transitioning from a stable, low-power condition to

This report presents work carried out under contract DE-AC22-95PC95144 ''Combustion 2000 - Phase II.'' The goals of the program are to develop a coal-fired high performance power generation system (HIPPS) that is capable of: {lg_bullet} thermal efficiency (HHV) {ge} 47% {lg_bullet} NOx, SOx, and particulates {le} 10% NSPS (New Source Performance Standard) {lg_bullet} coal providing {ge} 65% of heat input {lg_bullet} all solid wastes benign {lg_bullet} cost of electricity {le} 90% of present plants Phase I, which began in 1992, focused on the analysis of various configurations of indirectly fired cycles and on technical assessments of alternative plant subsystems and components, including performance requirements, developmental status, design options, complexity and reliability, and capital and operating costs. Phase I also included preliminary R&D and the preparation of designs for HIPPS commercial plants approximately 300 MWe in size. Phase II, had as its initial objective the development of a complete design base for the construction and operation of a HIPPS prototype plant to be constructed in Phase III. As part of a descoping initiative, the Phase III program has been eliminated and work related to the commercial plant design has been ended. The rescoped program retained a program of engineering research and development focusing on high temperature heat exchangers, e.g. HITAF development (Task 2); a rescoped Task 6 that is pertinent to Vision 21 objectives and focuses on advanced cycle analysis and optimization, integration of gas turbines into complex cycles, and repowering designs; and preparation of the Phase II Technical Report (Task 8). This rescoped program deleted all subsystem testing (Tasks 3, 4, and 5) and the development of a site-specific engineering design and test plan for the HIPPS prototype plant (Task 7). Work reported herein is from: {lg_bullet} Task 2.2.4 Pilot Scale Testing {lg_bullet} Task 2.2.5.2 Laboratory and Bench Scale Activities

Combustion problems and research recommendations are discussed in the areas of atomization and vaporization, combustion chemistry, combustion dynamics, and combustion modelling. The recommendations considered of highest priority in these areas are presented.

A shear acoustic transducer-lens system in which a shear polarized piezoelectric material excites shear polarized waves at one end of a buffer rod having a lens at the other end which excites longitudinal waves in a coupling medium by mode conversion at selected locations on the lens.

A shear acoustic transducer-lens system is described in which a shear polarized piezoelectric material excites shear polarized waves at one end of a buffer rod having a lens at the other end which excites longitudinal waves in a coupling medium by mode conversion at selected locations on the lens. 9 figs.

considered a number of problems involving filtration combustion. Here we describe two such studies: (A) fingering instabilities in filtration combustion, (B) rapid filtration combustion waves driven by convection.

The present paper is concerned with experimental estimation of acoustic dissipation under conditions representative of those in a rocket engine combustion chamber. Specifically, the influence of operating and injection conditions on acoustic dissipation is considered. Two experimental and analytical techniques are applied to measure and then compare dissipation rates of the first longitudinal and transverse acoustic modes in an experimental combustion chamber. Comparison between non-combustion and combustion tests showed that combustion chamber damping for the first transverse mode is far greater under combustion conditions. A lesser difference between non-combustion and combustion tests for the first longitudinal mode was found although the damping rates during combustion tests were still higher. A strong relationship between primary injection velocity and dissipation rate was observed, with lower injection velocities leading to decreased damping rates of the first transverse mode. Furthermore, increased film cooling injection rate decreased dissipation rate. The significant influence of representative conditions, specifically injection conditions, on dissipation rate has strong implications for both combustor design and experimental approaches aimed at quantifying dissipation in rocket combustion chambers.

Noise generation in technical devices is an increasingly important problem. Jet engines in particular produce sound levels that not only are a nuisance but may also impair hearing. The noise emitted by such engines is generated by different sources such as jet exhaust, fans or turbines, and combustion. Whereas the former acoustic mechanisms are reasonably well understood, combustion-generated noise is not. A methodology for the prediction of combustion-generated noise is developed. In this hybrid approach unsteady acoustic source terms are obtained from an LES and the propagation of pressure perturbations are obtained using acoustic analogies. Lighthill's acoustic analogy and a non-linear wave equation, accounting for variable speed of sound, have been employed. Both models are applied to an open diffusion flame. The effects on the far field pressure and directivity due to the variation of speed of sound are analyzed. Results for the sound pressure level will be compared with experimental data.

Ballroom Music Spillover into a Beluga Whale Aquarium Exhibit,” Advances in Acoustics and Vibration, 2012 (doi:10.1155/2012/402130) [ refereed]. 12...speeds, and attenuation profiles utilizing the broadband Combustive Sound Source (CSS) developed at the Applied Research Laboratories (ARL), University...Adjoint based inversion The adjoint inversion method has been used to measure both the range independent ocean sound speed environment and acoustic

The Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space (CCACS) at the Colorado School of Mines is working with a number of companies planning commercial combustion research to be done aboard the International Space Station (ISS). This research will be conducted in two major ISS facilities, SpaceDRUMS™ and the Fluids and Combustion Facility. SpaceDRUMS™, under development by Guigne Technologies, Ltd., of St. John's Newfoundland, is a containerless processing facility employing active acoustic sample positioning. It is capable of processing the large samples needed in commercial research and development with virtually complete vibration isolation from the space station. The Fluids and Combustion Facility (FCF), being developed by NASA-Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, is a general-purpose combustion furnace designed to accommodate a wide range of scientific experiments. SpaceDRUMS™ will be the first commercial hardware to be launched to ISS. Launch is currently scheduled for UF-1 in 2001. The CCACS research to be done in SpaceDRUMS™ includes combustion synthesis of glass-ceramics and porous materials. The FCF is currently scheduled to be launched to ISS aboard UF-3 in 2002. The CCACS research to be done in the FCF includes water mist fire suppression, catalytic combustion and flame synthesis of ceramic powders. The companies currently planning to be involved in the research include Guigne International, Ltd., Technology International, Inc., Coors Ceramics Company, TDA Research, Advanced Refractory Technologies, Inc., ADA Technologies, Inc., ITN Energy Systems, Inc., Innovative Scientific Solutions, Inc., Princeton Instruments, Inc., Environmental Engineering Concepts, Inc., and Solar Turbines, Inc. Together, these companies are currently investing almost $2 million in cash and in-kind annually toward the seven commercial projects within CCACS. Total private investment in CCACS research to date is over $7 million. .

wind, currents, and topography. Under these conditions, it is typical to encounter regimes of homogenous and isotropic turbulence, and for...influence of different discharge regimes on the observation of shear instabilities. 3. Modeling. Modeling of the acoustic propagation eigenrays

This computational study focuses on understanding and quantifying the effects of external acoustical perturbations on droplet combustion. A one-dimensional, axisymmetric representation of the essential diffusion and reaction processes occurring in the vicinity of the droplet stagnation point is used here in order to isolate the effects of the imposed acoustic disturbance. The simulation is performed using a third order accurate, essentially non-oscillatory (ENO) numerical scheme with a full methanol-air reaction mechanism. Consistent with recent microgravity and normal gravity combustion experiments, focus is placed on conditions where the droplet is situated at a velocity antinode in order for the droplet to experience the greatest effects of fluid mechanical straining of flame structures. The effects of imposed sound pressure level and frequency are explored here, and conditions leading to maximum burning rates are identified.

The instability of the ordinary electromagnetic mode propagating perpendicular to an external magnetic field is studied for a single-species plasma with ring velocity distribution. The marginal instability boundaries for both the purely growing mode and the propagating growing modes are calculated from the instability criteria. The dispersion characteristics for various sets of plasma parameters are also given. The typical growth rates are of the order of the cyclotron frequency.

The proceedings contain 45 papers on a wide range of subjects including flow generated instabilities in fluid flow machines, cracked shaft detection, case histories of instability phenomena in compressors, turbines, and pumps, vibration control in turbomachinery (including antiswirl techniques), and the simulation and estimation of destabilizing forces in rotating machines. The symposium was held to serve as an update on the understanding and control of rotating machinery instability problems.

Acoustic cavitation, a complex, spatio-temporal dynamical system, is investigated with respect to its chaotic properties. The sound output, the {open_quote}{open_quote}noise{close_quote}{close_quote}, is subjected to time series analysis. The spatial dynamics of the bubble filaments is captured by high speed holographic cinematography and subsequent digital picture processing from the holograms. Theoretical models are put forward for describing the pattern formation. {copyright} {ital 1996 American Institute of Physics.}

Medical acoustics can be subdivided into diagnostics and therapy. Diagnostics are further separated into auditory and ultrasonic methods, and both employ low amplitudes. Therapy (excluding medical advice) uses ultrasound for heating, cooking, permeablizing, activating and fracturing tissues and structures within the body, usually at much higher amplitudes than in diagnostics. Because ultrasound is a wave, linear wave physics are generally applicable, but recently nonlinear effects have become more important, even in low-intensity diagnostic applications.

Test data from NASA Lewis' Effect of Thrust Per Element on Combustion Stability Characteristics of Hydrogen-Oxygen Rocket Engines test program are used to validate two recently released stability analysis tools. The first tool is a design methodology called ROCCID (ROCket Combustor Interactive Design). ROCCID is an interactive design and analysis methodology that uses existing performance and combustion stability analysis codes. The second tool is HICCIP (High frequency Injection Coupled CombustionInstability Program). HICCIP is a recently developed combustion stability analysis model. Using a matrix of models, results from analytic comparisons with 20 K LOX/H2 experimental data are presented.

Acoustic dose is defined as the energy deposited by absorption of an acoustic wave per unit mass of the medium supporting the wave. Expressions for acoustic dose and acoustic dose-rate are given for plane-wave conditions, including temporal and frequency dependencies of energy deposition. The relationship between the acoustic dose-rate and the resulting temperature increase is explored, as is the relationship between acoustic dose-rate and radiation force. Energy transfer from the wave to the medium by means of acoustic cavitation is considered, and an approach is proposed in principle that could allow cavitation to be included within the proposed definitions of acoustic dose and acoustic dose-rate.

This work carries earlier finite-difference calculations of the Widnall instability of vortex rings into the late non-linear stage. Plots of energy in azimuthal Fourier modes indicate that low-order modes dominate at large times; their structure and dynamics remain unexplored, however. An attempt was made to calculate the acoustic signal using the theory of Mohring (1978), valid for unbounded flow. This theory shows that only low-order azimuthal modes contribute to the sound. As a check on the effects of axial periodicity and a slip wall at large radius imposed by the numerical scheme, the acoustic integrals were also computed in a truncated region. Half of the terms contributing to the sound have large differences between the two regions, and the results are therefore unreliable. The error is less severe for a contribution involving only the m = 2 mode, and its low frequency is consistent with a free elliptic bending wave on a thin ring.

Extensive research is being done toward the development of ultra-low-emissions combustors for aircraft gas turbine engines. However, these combustors have an increased susceptibility to thermoacoustic instabilities. This type of instability was recently observed in an advanced, low emissions combustor prototype installed in a NASA Glenn Research Center test stand. The instability produces pressure oscillations that grow with increasing fuel/air ratio, preventing full power operation. The instability behavior makes the combustor a potentially useful test bed for research into active control methods for combustioninstability suppression. The instability behavior was characterized by operating the combustor at various pressures, temperatures, and fuel and air flows representative of operation within an aircraft gas turbine engine. Trends in instability behavior versus operating condition have been identified and documented, and possible explanations for the trends provided. A simulation developed at NASA Glenn captures the observed instability behavior. The physics-based simulation includes the relevant physical features of the combustor and test rig, employs a Sectored 1-D approach, includes simplified reaction equations, and provides time-accurate results. A computationally efficient method is used for area transitions, which decreases run times and allows the simulation to be used for parametric studies, including control method investigations. Simulation results show that the simulation exhibits a self-starting, self-sustained combustioninstability and also replicates the experimentally observed instability trends versus operating condition. Future plans are to use the simulation to investigate active control strategies to suppress combustioninstabilities and then to experimentally demonstrate active instability suppression with the low emissions combustor prototype, enabling full power, stable operation.

Extensive research is being done toward the development of ultra-low-emissions combustors for aircraft gas turbine engines. However, these combustors have an increased susceptibility to thermoacoustic instabilities. This type of instability was recently observed in an advanced, low emissions combustor prototype installed in a NASA Glenn Research Center test stand. The instability produces pressure oscillations that grow with increasing fuel/air ratio, preventing full power operation. The instability behavior makes the combustor a potentially useful test bed for research into active control methods for combustioninstability suppression. The instability behavior was characterized by operating the combustor at various pressures, temperatures, and fuel and air flows representative of operation within an aircraft gas turbine engine. Trends in instability behavior vs. operating condition have been identified and documented. A simulation developed at NASA Glenn captures the observed instability behavior. The physics-based simulation includes the relevant physical features of the combustor and test rig, employs a Sectored 1-D approach, includes simplified reaction equations, and provides time-accurate results. A computationally efficient method is used for area transitions, which decreases run times and allows the simulation to be used for parametric studies, including control method investigations. Simulation results show that the simulation exhibits a self-starting, self-sustained combustioninstability and also replicates the experimentally observed instability trends vs. operating condition. Future plans are to use the simulation to investigate active control strategies to suppress combustioninstabilities and then to experimentally demonstrate active instability suppression with the low emissions combustor prototype, enabling full power, stable operation.

We obtain a fundamental instability of the magnetization-switching fronts in superparamagnetic and ferromagnetic materials such as crystals of nanomagnets, ferromagnetic nanowires, and systems of quantum dots with large spin. We develop the instability theory for both linear and nonlinear stages. By using numerical simulations we investigate the instability properties focusing on spin avalanches in crystals of nanomagnets. The instability distorts spontaneously the fronts and leads to a complex multidimensional front dynamics. We show that the instability has a universal physical nature, with a deep relationship to a wide variety of physical systems, such as the Darrieus-Landau instability of deflagration fronts in combustion, inertial confinement fusion, and thermonuclear supernovae, and the instability of doping fronts in organic semiconductors.

We obtain a fundamental instability of the magnetization-switching fronts in superparamagnetic and ferromagnetic materials such as crystals of nanomagnets, ferromagnetic nanowires, and systems of quantum dots with large spin. We develop the instability theory for both linear and nonlinear stages. By using numerical simulations we investigate the instability properties focusing on spin avalanches in crystals of nanomagnets. The instability distorts spontaneously the fronts and leads to a complex multidimensional front dynamics. We show that the instability has a universal physical nature, with a deep relationship to a wide variety of physical systems, such as the Darrieus-Landau instability of deflagration fronts in combustion, inertial confinement fusion, and thermonuclear supernovae, and the instability of doping fronts in organic semiconductors.

A gas turbine (12) capable of combusting a low quality gaseous fuel having a ratio of flammability limits less than 2, or a heat value below 100 BTU/SCF. A high quality fuel is burned simultaneously with the low quality fuel to eliminate instability in the combustion flame. A sensor (46) is used to monitor at least one parameter of the flame indicative of instability. A controller (50) having the sensor signal (48) as input is programmed to control the relative flow rates of the low quality and high quality fuels. When instability is detected, the flow rate of high quality fuel is automatically increased in relation to the flow rate of low quality fuel to restore stability.

A theoretical combustion model is developed to simulate the influence of ideal gas effects on various aeroacoustic parameters over a range of equivalence ratios. The motivation is to narrow the gap between laboratory and full-scale jet noise testing. The combustion model is used to model propane combustion in air and kerosene combustion in air. Gas properties from the combustion model are compared to real lab data acquired at the National Center for Physical Acoustics at the University of Mississippi as well as outputs from NASA's Chemical Equilibrium Analysis code. Different jet properties are then studied over a range of equivalence ratios and pressure ratios for propane combustion in air, kerosene combustion in air and heated air. The findings reveal negligible differences between the three constituents where the density and sound speed ratios are concerned. Albeit, the area ratio required for perfectly expanded flow is shown to be more sensitive to gas properties, relative to changes in the temperature ratio.

Method and apparatus are disclosed for safely combusting a fuel in such a manner that very low levels of NO{sub x} and CO are produced. The apparatus comprises an inlet line containing a fuel and an inlet line containing an oxidant. Coupled to the fuel line and to the oxidant line is a mixing means for thoroughly mixing the fuel and the oxidant without combusting them. Coupled to the mixing means is a means for injecting the mixed fuel and oxidant, in the form of a large-scale fluid dynamic structure, into a combustion region. Coupled to the combustion region is a means for producing a periodic flow field within the combustion region to mix the fuel and the oxidant with ambient gases in order to lower the temperature of combustion. The means for producing a periodic flow field can be a pulse combustor, a rotating band, or a rotating cylinder within an acoustic chamber positioned upstream or downstream of the region of combustion. The mixing means can be a one-way flapper valve; a rotating cylinder; a rotating band having slots that expose open ends of said fuel inlet line and said oxidant inlet line simultaneously; or a set of coaxial fuel annuli and oxidizer annuli. The means for producing a periodic flow field may or may not be in communication with an acoustic resonance. When employed, the acoustic resonance may be upstream or downstream of the region of combustion. 14 figs.

This report documents efforts to survey the current research directions in sensor technology for gas turbine systems. The work is driven by the current and future requirements on system performance and optimization. Accurate real time measurements of velocities, pressure, temperatures, and species concentrations will be required for objectives such as combustioninstability attenuation, pollutant reduction, engine health management, exhaust profile control via active control, etc. Changing combustor conditions - engine aging, flow path slagging, or rapid maneuvering - will require adaptive responses; the effectiveness of such will be only as good as the dynamic information available for processing. All of these issues point toward the importance of continued sensor development. For adequate control of the combustion process, sensor data must include information about the above mentioned quantities along with equivalence ratios and radical concentrations, and also include both temporal and spatial velocity resolution. Ultimately these devices must transfer from the laboratory to field installations, and thus must become low weight and cost, reliable and maintainable. A primary conclusion from this study is that the optics-based sensor science will be the primary diagnostic in future gas turbine technologies.

A previous investigation on the presence of direct and indirect combustion noise for a full-scale turbofan engine using a far-field microphone at 130 is extended by also examining signals obtained at two additional downstream directions using far-field microphones at 110 deg and 160 deg. A generalized cross-correlation function technique is used to study the change in propagation time to the far field of the combined direct and indirect combustion noise signal as a sequence of low-pass filters are applied. The filtering procedure used produces no phase distortion. As the low-pass filter frequency is decreased, the travel time increases because the relative amount of direct combustion noise is reduced. The indirect combustion noise signal travels more slowly because in the combustor entropy fluctuations move with the flow velocity, which is slow compared to the local speed of sound. The indirect combustion noise signal travels at acoustic velocities after reaching the turbine and being converted into an acoustic signal. The direct combustion noise is always propagating at acoustic velocities. The results show that the estimated indirect combustion noise time delay values (post-combustion residence times) measured at each angle are fairly consistent with one another for a relevant range of operating conditions and demonstrate source separation of a mixture of direct and indirect combustion noise. The results may lead to a better idea about the acoustics in the combustor and may help develop and validate improved reduced-order physics-based methods for predicting turbofan engine core noise.

In most pulse combustors, the combustion occurs near the closed end of a tube where inlet valves operate in phase with the pressure amplitude variations. Thus, within the combustion zone, both the temperature and the pressure oscillate around a mean value. However, the development of practical applications of pulse combustion has been hampered because effective design requires the right combination of the combustor's dimensions, valve characteristics, fuel/oxidizer combination, and flow pattern. Pulse combustion has several additional advantages for energy conversion efficiency, including high combustion and thermal efficiency, high combustion intensity, and high convective heat transfer rates. Also, pulse combustion can be self-aspirating, generating a pressure boost without using a blower. This allows the use of a compact heat exchanger that may include a condensing section and may obviate the need for a chimney. In the last decade, these features have revived interest in pulse combustion research and development, which has resulted in the development of a pulse combustion air heater by Lennox, and a pulse combustion hydronic unit by Hydrotherm, Inc. To appraise this potential for energy savings, a systematic study was conducted of the many past and present attempts to use pulse combustion for practical purposes. The authors recommended areas where pulse combustion technology could possibly be applied in the future and identified areas in which additional R and D would be necessary. Many of the results of the study project derived from a special workshop on pulse combustion. This document highlights the main points of the study report, with particular emphasis on pulse combustion application in chemical engineering.

Quasi-periodic bursts of acoustic oscillations were observed during the start-up process in a looped-tube thermoacoustic engine. The acoustic oscillations have a constant frequency of 111 Hz, while the bursts have "quasi-periods" in the order of 14-25 s. The quasi-periodic bursts show a new mode of amplitude growth in this thermoacoustic engine. The envelope of the acoustic oscillations has a fishbone-like shape. The nature of the observed fishbone-like instabilities suggests a strong interaction between the acoustic and temperature field.

This effort performed test data analysis in order to characterize the general behavior of combustor instabilities with emphasis on controls design. The analysis is performed on data obtained from two configurations of a laboratory combustor rig and from a developmental aero-engine combustor. The study has characterized several dynamic behaviors associated with combustor instabilities. These are: frequency and phase randomness, amplitude modulations, net random phase walks, random noise, exponential growth and intra-harmonic couplings. Finally, the very cause of combustor instabilities was explored and it could be attributed to a more general source-load type impedance interaction that includes the thermo-acoustic coupling. Performing these characterizations on different combustors allows for more accurate identification of the cause of these phenomena and their effect on instability.

We present a theory for the quantum-electrodynamical (QED) parametric scattering instability of an intense photon pulse in an incoherent radiation background. The pump electromagnetic (EM) wave can decay into a scattered daughter EM wave and an acousticlike wave due to the QED vacuum polarization nonlinearity. By a linear instability analysis we obtain a nonlinear dispersion relation for the growth rate of the scattering instability. The nonlinear QED scattering instability can give rise to the exchange of orbital angular momentum between intense Laguerre-Gaussian mode photon pulses and the two daughter waves, which may be a useful method to detect the highly energetic photon gases existing in the vicinity of rotating dense bodies in the Universe, such as pulsars and magnetars. The observation of the scattered waves may reveal information about the twisted acoustic waves in the incoherent photon gas.

The frequency spectrum of acoustic disturbances that are emitted by accelerating flame front in an air-hydrogen mixture within an axially symmetric channel with a uniform cross section is experimentally determined. The effect of acoustic disturbances that are reflected from the closed end of the combustion chamber on the flame front acceleration is studied. It is revealed that the frequency spectrum of generated acoustic disturbances under experiment conditions has maximums at frequencies close to 250, 800, and 1500 Hz.

Shear-flow investigations have been conducted in the high-Re, turbulent initial-condition combustion regime representative of flow configurations encountered in ramjets and in supersonic plumes. Large-scale vortical structures were identified and characterized in both nonreacting and combustion-reaction experimental conditions; attention was given to these structures' role in mixing, and their breakup into fine-scale turbulence. Shear-flow/combustion control was obtained by actively enlisting duct acoustics and passively employing noncircular flow cross-sections. The investigations were extended to supersonic shear flows, yielding improved mixing for supersonic combustion. 44 refs.

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The Combustive Sound Source (CSS) is being developed as an environmentally friendly source to be used in ocean acoustics research and surveys. It has the ability to maintain the same wide bandwidth signal over a 20 dB drop in source level. The CSS consists of a submersible combustion chamber filled with a fuel/oxidizer mixture. The mixture is ignited and the ensuing combustion and bubble activity radiates an impulsive, thus broadband, acoustic pulse. The ability to control pulse amplitude while maintaining bandwidth is demonstrated.

The fundamental assumptions of the Blizard and Keck combustion model for internal combustion engines are examined and a generalization of that model is derived. The most significant feature of the model is that it permits the occurrence of unburned hydrocarbons in the thermodynamic-kinetic modeling of exhaust gases. The general formulas are evaluated in two specific cases that are likely to be significant in the applications of the model.

A fluid fuel boiler is described comprising a combustion chamber, a cover on the combustion chamber having an opening for introducing a combustion-supporting gaseous fluid through said openings, means to impart rotation to the gaseous fluid about an axis of the combustion chamber, a burner for introducing a fluid fuel into the chamber mixed with the gaseous fluid for combustion thereof, the cover having a generally frustro-conical configuration diverging from the opening toward the interior of the chamber at an angle of between 15/sup 0/ and 55/sup 0/; means defining said combustion chamber having means defining a plurality of axial hot gas flow paths from a downstream portion of the combustion chamber to flow hot gases into an upstream portion of the combustion chamber, and means for diverting some of the hot gas flow along paths in a direction circumferentially of the combustion chamber, with the latter paths being immersed in the water flow path thereby to improve heat transfer and terminating in a gas outlet, the combustion chamber comprising at least one modular element, joined axially to the frustro-conical cover and coaxial therewith. The modular element comprises an inner ring and means of defining the circumferential, radial, and spiral flow paths of the hot gases.

An investigation has been undertaken into acoustic iridescence, exploring how a device can be constructed which alter sound waves, in a similar way to structures in nature that act on light to produce optical iridescence. The main construction had many thin perforated sheets spaced half a wavelength apart for a specified design frequency. The sheets create the necessary impedance discontinuities to create backscattered waves, which then interfere to create strongly reflected sound at certain frequencies. Predictions and measurements show a set of harmonics, evenly spaced in frequency, for which sound is reflected strongly. And the frequency of these harmonics increases as the angle of observation gets larger, mimicking the iridescence seen in natural optical systems. Similar to optical systems, the reflections become weaker for oblique angles of reflection. A second construction was briefly examined which exploited a metamaterial made from elements and inclusions which were much smaller than the wavelength. Boundary element method predictions confirmed the potential for creating acoustic iridescence from layers of such a material.

An acoustic transducer is described comprising a one-piece hollow mandrel into the outer surface of which is formed a recess with sides perpendicular to the central axis of the mandrel and separated by a first distance and with a bottom parallel to the central axis and within which recess are a plurality of washer-shaped discs of a piezoelectric material and at least one disc of a temperature-compensating material with the discs being captured between the sides of the recess in a pre-stressed interference fit, typically at 2,000 psi of compressive stress. The transducer also includes a power supply and means to connect to a measurement device. The transducer is intended to be used for telemetry between a measurement device located downhole in an oil or gas well and the surface. The transducer is of an construction that is stronger with fewer joints that could leak fluids into the recess holding the piezoelectric elements than is found in previous acoustic transducers. 4 figs.

An acoustic transducer comprising a one-piece hollow mandrel into the outer surface of which is formed a recess with sides perpendicular to the central axis of the mandrel and separated by a first distance and with a bottom parallel to the central axis and within which recess are a plurality of washer-shaped discs of a piezoelectric material and at least one disc of a temperature-compensating material with the discs being captured between the sides of the recess in a pre-stressed interference fit, typically at 2000 psi of compressive stress. The transducer also includes a power supply and means to connect to a measurement device. The transducer is intended to be used for telemetry between a measurement device located downhole in an oil or gas well and the surface. The transducer is of an construction that is stronger with fewer joints that could leak fluids into the recess holding the piezoelectric elements than is found in previous acoustic transducers.

Internal fluid flows are subject not only to self-sustained oscillations of the purely hydrodynamic type but also to the coupling of the instability with the acoustic mode of the surrounding cavity. This situation is common to turbomachinery, since flow instabilities are confined within a flow path where the acoustic wavelength is typically smaller than the dimensions of the cavity and flow speeds are low enough to allow resonances. When acoustic coupling occurs, the fluctuations can become so severe in amplitude that it may induce structural failure of engine components. The potential for catastrophic failure makes identifying flow-induced noise and vibration sources a priority. In view of the complexity of these types of flows, this report was written with the purpose of presenting many of the methods used to compute frequencies for self-sustained oscillations. The report also presents the engineering formulae needed to calculate the acoustic resonant modes for ducts and cavities. Although the report is not a replacement for more complex numerical or experimental modeling techniques, it is intended to be used on general types of flow configurations that are known to produce self-sustained oscillations. This report provides a complete collection of these models under one cover.

The article deals with the combustion process for lump wood in low-power fireplaces (units to dozens of kW). Such a combustion process is cyclical in its nature, and what combustion facility users are most interested in is the frequency, at which fuel needs to be stoked to the fireplace. The paper defines the basic terms such as burnout curve and burning rate curve, which are closely related to the stocking frequency. The fuel burning rate is directly dependent on the immediate thermal power of the fireplace. This is also related to the temperature achieved in the fireplace, magnitude of flue gas losses and the ability to generate conditions favouring the full burnout of the fuel's combustible component, which, at once ensures the minimum production of combustible pollutants. Another part of the paper describes experiments conducted in traditional fireplaces with a grate, at which well-dried lump wood was combusted.

Combustion oscillations are receiving renewed research interest due to increasing application of lean premix (LPM) combustion to gas turbines. A simple, nonlinear model for premixed combustion is described; it was developed to explain experimental results and to provide guidance for developing active control schemes based on nonlinear concepts. The model can be used to quickly examine instability trends associated with changes in equivalence ratio, mass flow rate, geometry, ambient conditions, etc. The model represents the relevant processes occurring in a fuel nozzle and combustor analogous to current LPM turbine combustors. Conservation equations for the nozzle and combustor are developed from simple control volume analysis, providing ordinary differential equations that can be solved on a PC. Combustion is modeled as a stirred reactor, with bimolecular reaction between fuel and air. Although focus is on the model, it and experimental results are compared to understand effects of inlet air temperature and open loop control schemes. The model shows that both are related to changes in transport time.

A two-year study of noise production in a long tubular burner is described. The research was motivated by an interest in understanding and eventually reducing core noise in gas turbine engines. The general approach is to employ an acoustic source/propagation model to interpret the sound pressure spectrum in the acoustic far field of the burner in terms of the source spectrum that must have produced it. In the model the sources are assumed to be due uniquely to the unsteady component of combustion heat release; thus only direct combustion-noise is considered. The source spectrum is then the variation with frequency of the thermal-acoustic efficiency, defined as the fraction of combustion heat release which is converted into acoustic energy at a given frequency. The thrust of the research was to study the variation of the source spectrum with the design and operating parameters of the burner.

Arteries can become tortuous in response to abnormal growth stimuli, genetic defects and aging. It is suggested that a buckling instability is a mechanism that might lead to artery tortuosity. Here, the buckling instability in arteries is studied by examining asymmetric modes of bifurcation of two-layer cylindrical structures that are residually stressed. These structures are loaded by an axial force, internal pressure and have nonlinear, anisotropic, hyperelastic responses to stresses. Strain-softening and reduced opening angle are shown to lower the critical internal pressure leading to buckling. In addition, the ratio of the media thickness to the adventitia thickness is shown to have a dramatic impact on arterial instability.

Debate over whether linear instability waves play a role in the prediction of jet noise has been going on for many years. Parallel mean flow models, such as the one proposed by Lilley, usually neglect these waves because they cause the solution to become infinite. The present paper solves the true non-parallel acoustic equations for a two-dimensional shear layer by using a vector Greens function and assuming small mean flow spread rate. The results show that linear instability waves must be accounted for in order to construct a proper causal solution to the problem.

The effect of the dust charge variations on the stability of a self-gravitating dusty plasma has been theoretically investigated. The dispersion relation for the dust-acoustic waves in a self-gravitating dusty plasma is obtained. It is shown that the dust charge variations have significant effects. It increases the growth rate of instability and the instability cutoff wavenumbers. It is found that by increasing the value of the ions temperature and the absolute value of the equilibrium dust charge, the cutoff wavenumber decreases and the stability region is extended.

Coal-burning powerplants, which supply more than half of U.S. electricity, also generate coal combustion products, which can be both a resource and a disposal problem. The U.S. Geological Survey collaborates with the American Coal Ash Association in preparing its annual report on coal combustion products. This Fact Sheet answers questions about present and potential uses of coal combustion products.

A supersonic combustion ramjet engine having a combustor with a combustion zone intended to channel gas flow at relatively high speed therethrough, the engine comprising: means for substantially continuously supplying fuel into the combustion zone; and means for substantially instantaneously igniting a volume of fuel in the combustion zone for providing a spatially controlled combustion distribution, the igniting means having means for providing a diffuse discharge of energy into the volume, the volume extending across a substantially complete cross-sectional area of the combustion zone, the means for discharging energy being capable of generating free radicals within the volume of reactive fuel in the combustion zone such that fuel in the volume can initiate a controlled relatively rapid combustion of fuel in the combustion zone whereby combustion distribution in relatively high speed gas flows through the combustion zone can be initiated and controlled without dependence upon a flame holder or relatively high local static temperature in the combustion zone.

Liquid fuel combustion provides a major portion of the world's energy supply. In most practical combustion devices, liquid burns after being separated into a droplet spray. Essential to the design of efficient combustion systems is a knowledge of droplet combustion behavior. The microgravity environment aboard spacecraft provides an opportunity to investigate the complex interactions between the physical and chemical combustion processes involved in droplet combustion without the complications of natural buoyancy. Launched on STS-83 and STS-94 (April 4 and July 1, 1997), the Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE) investigated the fundamentals of droplet combustion under a range of pressures (0.25 to 1 atm), oxygen mole fractions (<0.5), and droplet sizes (1.5 to 5 mm). Principal DCE flight hardware features were a chamber to supply selected test environments, the use of crew-inserted bottles, and a vent system to remove unwanted gaseous combustion products. The internal apparatus contained the droplet deployment and ignition mechanisms to burn single, freely deployed droplets in microgravity. Diagnostics systems included a 35-mm high-speed motion picture camera (see the following sequence of photos) with a backlight to photograph burning droplets and a camcorder to monitor experiment operations. Additional diagnostics included an ultraviolet-light-sensitive CCD (charge couple discharge) camera to obtain flame radiation from hydroxyl radicals (see the final figure) and a 35-mm SLR (single-lens-reflex) camera to obtain color still photographs of the flames.

Ashlines: To promote and support the commercially viable and environmentally sound recycling of coal combustion byproducts for productive uses through scientific research, development, and field testing.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is developing a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocket engine for upper stage and trans-lunar applications of the Ares vehicles for the Constellation program. This engine, designated the J-2X, is a higher pressure, higher thrust variant of the Apollo-era J-2 engine. Development was contracted to Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2006. Over the past several years, development of the gas generator for the J-2X engine has progressed through a variety of workhorse injector, chamber, and feed system configurations. Several of these configurations have resulted in injection-coupled combustioninstability of the gas generator assembly at the first longitudinal mode of the combustion chamber. In this paper, the longitudinal mode combustioninstabilities observed on the workhorse test stand are discussed in detail. Aspects of this combustioninstability have been modeled at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center with several codes, including the Rocket Combustor Interaction Design and Analysis (ROCCID) code and a new lumped-parameter MatLab model. To accurately predict the instability characteristics of all the chamber and injector geometries and test conditions, several features of the submodels in the ROCCID suite of calculations required modification. Finite-element analyses were conducted of several complicated combustion chamber geometries to determine how to model and anchor the chamber response in ROCCID. A large suite of sensitivity calculations were conducted to determine how to model and anchor the injector response in ROCCID. These modifications and their ramification for future stability analyses of this type are discussed in detail. The lumped-parameter MatLab model of the gas generator assembly was created as an alternative calculation to the ROCCID methodology. This paper also describes this model and the stability calculations.

An acoustic cryocooler with no moving parts is formed from a thermoacoustic driver (TAD) driving a pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) through a standing wave tube. Thermoacoustic elements in the TAD are spaced apart a distance effective to accommodate the increased thermal penetration length arising from the relatively low TAD operating frequency in the range of 15-60 Hz. At these low operating frequencies, a long tube is required to support the standing wave. The tube may be coiled to reduce the overall length of the cryocooler. One or two PTR's are located on the standing wave tube adjacent antinodes in the standing wave to be driven by the standing wave pressure oscillations. It is predicted that a heat input of 1000 W at 1000 K will maintian a cooling load of 5 W at 80 K.

An active acoustic transducer tool for use down-hole applications. The tool includes a single cylindrical mandrel including a shoulder defining the boundary of a narrowed portion over which is placed a sandwich-style piezoelectric tranducer assembly. The piezoelectric transducer assembly is prestressed by being placed in a thermal interference fit between the shoulder of the mandrel and the base of an anvil which is likewise positioned over the narrower portion of the mandrel. In the preferred embodiment, assembly of the tool is accomplished using a hydraulic jack to stretch the mandrel prior to emplacement of the cylindrical sandwich-style piezoelectric transducer assembly and anvil. After those elements are positioned and secured, the stretched mandrel is allowed to return substantially to its original (pre-stretch) dimensions with the result that the piezoelectric transducer elements are compressed between the anvil and the shoulder of the mandrel.

SUMMARY Bacterial genomes are remarkably stable from one generation to the next but are plastic on an evolutionary time scale, substantially shaped by horizontal gene transfer, genome rearrangement, and the activities of mobile DNA elements. This implies the existence of a delicate balance between the maintenance of genome stability and the tolerance of genome instability. In this review, we describe the specialized genetic elements and the endogenous processes that contribute to genome instability. We then discuss the consequences of genome instability at the physiological level, where cells have harnessed instability to mediate phase and antigenic variation, and at the evolutionary level, where horizontal gene transfer has played an important role. Indeed, this ability to share DNA sequences has played a major part in the evolution of life on Earth. The evolutionary plasticity of bacterial genomes, coupled with the vast numbers of bacteria on the planet, substantially limits our ability to control disease. PMID:24600039

Broadcasting messages through the earth is a daunting task. Indeed, broadcasting a normal telephone conversion through the earth by wireless means is impossible with todays technology. Most of us don't care, but some do. Industries that drill into the earth need wireless communication to broadcast navigation parameters. This allows them to steer their drill bits. They also need information about the natural formation that they are drilling. Measurements of parameters such as pressure, temperature, and gamma radiation levels can tell them if they have found a valuable resource such as a geothermal reservoir or a stratum bearing natural gas. Wireless communication methods are available to the drilling industry. Information is broadcast via either pressure waves in the drilling fluid or electromagnetic waves in the earth and well tubing. Data transmission can only travel one way at rates around a few baud. Given that normal Internet telephone modems operate near 20,000 baud, these data rates are truly very slow. Moreover, communication is often interrupted or permanently blocked by drilling conditions or natural formation properties. Here we describe a tool that communicates with stress waves traveling through the steel drill pipe and production tubing in the well. It's based on an old idea called Acoustic Telemetry. But what we present here is more than an idea. This tool exists, it's drilled several wells, and it works. Currently, it's the first and only acoustic telemetry tool that can withstand the drilling environment. It broadcasts one way over a limited range at much faster rates than existing methods, but we also know how build a system that can communicate both up and down wells of indefinite length.

Distal radioulnar joint (DRUJ) instability is a common clinical condition but a frequently missed diagnosis. Both surgical and nonsurgical treatments are possible for chronic cases of DRUJ instability. Nonsurgical treatment can be considered as the primary therapy in less active patients, while surgery should be considered to recover bone and ligament injuries if nonsurgical treatment fails to restore forearm stability and function. The appropriate choice of treatment depends on the individual patient and specific derangement of the DRUJ PMID:26328241

A widely unexplored type of hydrodynamic instability is examined - large-time algebraic growth. Such growth occurs on the threshold of (exponentially) neutral stability. A new methodology is provided for predicting the algebraic growth rate of an initial disturbance, when applied to the governing differential equation (or dispersion relation) describing wave propagation in dispersive media. Several types of algebraic instabilities are explored in the context of both linear and nonlinear waves.

The modulational instability of dust-ion acoustic (DIA) waves in an unmagnetized dusty plasma is investigated in the presence of weak dissipations arising due to the low rates (compared to the ion oscillation frequency) of ionization recombination and ion loss. Based on the multiple space and time scales perturbation, a new modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation governing the evolution of modulated DIA waves is derived with a linear damping term. It is shown that the combined action of all dissipative mechanisms due to collisions between particles reveals the permitted maximum time for the occurrence of the modulational instability. The influence on the modulational instability regions of relevant physical parameters such as ion temperature, dust concentration, ionization, recombination and ion loss is numerically examined. It is also found that the recombination frequency controls the instability growth rate, whereas recombination and ion loss make the instability regions wider.

A series of rocket motor firings was performed in a modified linear aerospike thrust chamber with the H2/O2 propellant combination to allow determination of the physical properties of the combustion gases in acoustic cavities located in the chamber side walls. A preliminary analytical study was first conducted to define theoretically both the appropriate cavity dimensions and the combustion gas flow field adjacent to the cavity openings. During the subsequent motor firings, cavity gas temperature profiles were measured and gas samples were withdrawn from the bottom of the cavities for compositional analysis by measurement of pressure/temperature variation and gas chromatography. Data were obtained with both radially and axially oriented cavities and with and without hydrogen bleed flow through the cavities. A simplified procedure was developed for predicting gas cavity and acoustic velocity for use in acoustic cavity design analyses.

Since its prediction 15 years ago, hydrodynamic instability in concentration polarization at a charge-selective interface has been attributed to nonequilibrium electro-osmosis related to the extended space charge which develops at the limiting current. This attribution had a double basis. On the one hand, it has been recognized that neither equilibrium electro-osmosis nor bulk electroconvection can yield instability for a perfectly charge-selective solid. On the other hand, it has been shown that nonequilibrium electro-osmosis can. The first theoretical studies in which electro-osmotic instability was predicted and analyzed employed the assumption of perfect charge selectivity for the sake of simplicity and so did the subsequent studies of various time-dependent and nonlinear features of electro-osmotic instability. In this Letter, we show that relaxing the assumption of perfect charge selectivity (tantamount to fixing the electrochemical potential of counterions in the solid) allows for the equilibrium electroconvective instability. In addition, we suggest a simple experimental test for determining the true, either equilibrium or nonequilibrium, origin of instability in concentration polarization.

The Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability in the context of strongly coupled dusty plasma medium has been investigated. In particular, the role of transverse shear and the compressional acoustic modes in both the linear and nonlinear regimes of the KH instability has been studied. It is observed that in addition to the conventional nonlocal KH instability, there exists a local instability in the strong coupling case. The interplay of the KH mode with this local instability shows up in the simulations as an interesting phenomenon of recurrence in the nonlinear regime. Thus, a cyclic KH instability process is observed to occur. These cyclic events are associated with bursts of activity in terms of transverse and compressional wave generation in the medium.

Instability is one of the factors which limit the extent to which solids can be loaded or deformed and plays a pivotal role in the design of many structures. Such instabilities often result in localized deformation which precipitates catastrophic failure. Some materials have the capacity to recover their stiffness following a certain amount of localized deformation. This local recovery in stiffness arrests further local deformation and spreading of the instability to neighboring material becomes preferred. Under displacement controlled loading the propagation of the transition fronts can be achieved in a steady-state manner at a constant stress level known as the propagation stress. The stresses in the transition fronts joining the highly deformed zone to the intact material overcome the instability nucleation stresses and, as a result, the propagation stress is usually much lower than the stress required to nucleate the instability. The classical example of this class of material instabilities is L/"uders bands which tend to affect mild steels and other metals. Recent work has demonstrated that propagating instabilities occur in several other materials. Experimental and analytical results from four examples will be used to illustrate this point: First the evolution of L=FCders bands in mild steel strips will be revisited. The second example involves the evolution of stress induced phase transformations (austenite to martensite phases and the reverse) in a shape memory alloy under displacement controlled stretching. The third example is the crushing behavior of cellular materials such as honeycombs and foams made from metals and polymers. The fourth example involves the axial broadening/propagation of kink bands in aligned fiber/matrix composites under compression. The microstructure and, as a result, the micromechanisms governing the onset, localization, local arrest and propagation of instabilities in each of the four materials are vastly different. Despite this

The objective of this activity is to support the Office of Fossil Energy in executing research on coal combustion science. This activity consists of basic research on coal combustion that supports both the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center Direct Utilization Advanced Research and Technology Development Program, and the International Energy Agency Coal Combustion Science Project. Specific tasks for this activity include: (1) coal devolatilization - the objective of this risk is to characterize the physical and chemical processes that constitute the early devolatilization phase of coal combustion as a function of coal type, heating rate, particle size and temperature, and gas phase temperature and oxidizer concentration; (2) coal char combustion -the objective of this task is to characterize the physical and chemical processes involved during coal char combustion as a function of coal type, particle size and temperature, and gas phase temperature and oxygen concentration; (3) fate of mineral matter during coal combustion - the objective of this task is to establish a quantitative understanding of the mechanisms and rates of transformation, fragmentation, and deposition of mineral matter in coal combustion environments as a function of coal type, particle size and temperature, the initial forms and distribution of mineral species in the unreacted coal, and the local gas temperature and composition.

Most of energy used by us is generated by combustion of fuels. On the other hand, combustion is responsible for contamination of our living earth. Combustion, also, gives us damage to our life as fire or explosive accidents. Therefore, clean and safe combustion is now eagerly required. Knowledge of the combustion process in combustors is needed to achieve proper designs that have stable operation, high efficiency, and low emission levels. However, current understanding on combustion is far from complete. Especially, there is few useful information on practical liquid and solid particle cloud combustion. Studies on combustion process under microgravity condition will provide many informations for basic questions related to combustors.

Energetic electrons generated by electron cyclotron resonance heating are observed to drive instabilities in the quasihelically symmetric stellarator device. The coherent, global fluctuations peak in the plasma core and are measured in the frequency range of 20-120 kHz. Mode propagation is in the diamagnetic drift direction of the driving species. When quasihelical symmetry is broken, the mode is no longer observed. Experimental observations indicate that the unstable mode is acoustic rather than Alfvénic.

Different source-related factors can lead to vocal fold instabilities and bifurcations referred to as voice breaks. Nonlinear coupling in phonation suggests that changes in acoustic loading can also be responsible for this unstable behavior. However, no in vivo visualization of tissue motion during these acoustically induced instabilities has been reported. Simultaneous recordings of laryngeal high-speed videoendoscopy, acoustics, aerodynamics, electroglottography, and neck skin acceleration are obtained from a participant consistently exhibiting voice breaks during pitch glide maneuvers. Results suggest that acoustically induced and source-induced instabilities can be distinguished at the tissue level. Differences in vibratory patterns are described through kymography and phonovibrography; measures of glottal area, open/speed quotient, and amplitude/phase asymmetry; and empirical orthogonal function decomposition. Acoustically induced tissue instabilities appear abruptly and exhibit irregular vocal fold motion after the bifurcation point, whereas source-induced ones show a smoother transition. These observations are also reflected in the acoustic and acceleration signals. Added aperiodicity is observed after the acoustically induced break, and harmonic changes appear prior to the bifurcation for the source-induced break. Both types of breaks appear to be subcritical bifurcations due to the presence of hysteresis and amplitude changes after the frequency jumps. These results are consistent with previous studies and the nonlinear source-filter coupling theory.

Experimental and theoretical investigations of acoustic mixing procedures designed to uniformly distribute fuel particles in a combustion tube for application in the proposed Particle Cloud Combustion Experiment (PCCE) are described. Two acoustic mixing methods are investigated: mixing in a cylindrical tube using high frequency spinning modes generated by suitably phased, or quadrature speakers, and acoustic premixing in a sphere. Quadrature mixing leads to rapid circumferential circulation of the powder around the tube. Good mixing is observed in the circulating regions. However, because axial inhomogeneities are necessarily present in the acoustic field, this circulation does not extend throughout the tube. Simultaneous operation of the quadrature-speaker set and the axial-speaker was observed to produce considerably enhanced mixing compared to operation of the quadrature-speaker set alone. Mixing experiments using both types of speakers were free of the longitudinal powder drift observed using axial-speakers alone. Vigorous powder mixing was obtained in the sphere for many normal modes: however, in no case was the powder observed to fill the sphere entirely. Theoretical analysis indicated that mixing under steady conditions cannot fill more than a hemisphere except under very unusual conditions. Premixing in a hemisphere may be satisfactory; otherwise, complete mixing in microgravity might be possible by operating the speaker in short bursts. A general conclusion is that acoustic transients are more likely to produce good mixing than steady state conditions. The reason is that in steady conditions, flow structures like nodal planes are possible and often even unavoidable. These tend to separate the mixing region into cells across which powder cannot be transferred. In contrast, transients not only are free of such structures, they also have the characteristics, desirable for mixing, of randomness and disorder. This conclusion is corroborated by mixing

A four-component plasma composed of a drifting (parallel to ambient magnetic field) population of warm electrons, drifting (anti-parallel to ambient magnetic field) cool electrons, stationary hot electrons, and thermal ions is studied in an attempt to further our understanding of the excitation mechanisms of broadband electrostatic noise (BEN) in the Earth's magnetospheric regions such as the magnetosheath, plasmasphere, and plasma sheet boundary layer (PSBL). Using kinetic theory, beam-driven electrostatic instabilities such as the ion-acoustic, electron-acousticinstabilities are found to be supported in our multi-component model. The dependence of the instability growth rates and real frequencies on various plasma parameters such as beam speed, number density, temperature, and temperature anisotropy of the counter-streaming (relative to ambient magnetic field) cool electron beam are investigated. It is found that the number density of the anti-field aligned cool electron beam and drift speed play a central role in determining which instability is excited. Using plasma parameters which are closely correlated with the measurements made by the Cluster satellites in the PSBL region, we find that the electron-acoustic and ion-acousticinstabilities could account for the generation of BEN in this region.

One of the fundamental challenges facing the cell is to accurately copy its genetic material to daughter cells. When this process goes awry, genomic instability ensues in which genetic alterations ranging from nucleotide changes to chromosomal translocations and aneuploidy occur. Organisms have developed multiple mechanisms that can be classified into two major classes to ensure the fidelity of DNA replication. The first class includes mechanisms that prevent premature initiation of DNA replication and ensure that the genome is fully replicated once and only once during each division cycle. These include cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)-dependent mechanisms and CDK-independent mechanisms. Although CDK-dependent mechanisms are largely conserved in eukaryotes, higher eukaryotes have evolved additional mechanisms that seem to play a larger role in preventing aberrant DNA replication and genome instability. The second class ensures that cells are able to respond to various cues that continuously threaten the integrity of the genome by initiating DNA-damage-dependent “checkpoints” and coordinating DNA damage repair mechanisms. Defects in the ability to safeguard against aberrant DNA replication and to respond to DNA damage contribute to genomic instability and the development of human malignancy. In this article, we summarize our current knowledge of how genomic instability arises, with a particular emphasis on how the DNA replication process can give rise to such instability. PMID:23335075

To reduce the environmental impact of aerospace propulsion systems, extensive research is being done in the development of lean-burning (low fuel-to-air ratio) combustors that can reduce emissions throughout the mission cycle. However, these lean-burning combustors have an increased susceptibility to thermoacoustic instabilities-high-pressure oscillations much like sound waves that can cause severe high-frequency vibrations in the combustor. These pressure waves can fatigue the combustor components and even the downstream turbine blades. This can significantly decrease the combustor and turbine safe operating life. Thus, suppression of the thermoacoustic combustor instabilities is an enabling technology for lean, low-emissions combustors. Under the Propulsion and Power Program, the NASA Glenn Research Center in partnership with Pratt & Whitney, United Technologies Research Center, and Georgia Institute of Technology is developing technologies for the active control of combustioninstabilities.

The Acoustical Testing Laboratory (ATL) at the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, OH, provides acoustic emission testing and noise control engineering services for a variety of specialized customers, particularly developers of equipment and science experiments manifested for NASA's manned space missions. The ATL's primary customer has been the Fluids and Combustion Facility (FCF), a multirack microgravity research facility being developed at GRC for the USA Laboratory Module of the International Space Station (ISS). Since opening in September 2000, ATL has conducted acoustic emission testing of components, subassemblies, and partially populated FCF engineering model racks. The culmination of this effort has been the acoustic emission verification tests on the FCF Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) and Fluids Integrated Rack (FIR), employing a procedure that incorporates ISO 11201 (``Acoustics-Noise emitted by machinery and equipment-Measurement of emission sound pressure levels at a work station and at other specified positions-Engineering method in an essentially free field over a reflecting plane''). This paper will provide an overview of the test methodology, software, and hardware developed to perform the acoustic emission verification tests on the CIR and FIR flight racks and lessons learned from these tests.

Delphi Automotive Systems and ORNL established this CRADA to expand the operational range of Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) mixed-mode combustion for gasoline en-gines. ORNL has extensive experience in the analysis, interpretation, and control of dynamic engine phenomena, and Delphi has extensive knowledge and experience in powertrain compo-nents and subsystems. The partnership of these knowledge bases was important to address criti-cal barriers associated with the realistic implementation of HCCI and enabling clean, efficient operation for the next generation of transportation engines. The foundation of this CRADA was established through the analysis of spark-assisted HCCI data from a single-cylinder research engine. This data was used to (1) establish a conceptual kinetic model to better understand and predict the development of combustioninstabilities, (2) develop a low-order model framework suitable for real-time controls, and (3) provide guidance in the initial definition of engine valve strategies for achieving HCCI operation. The next phase focused on the development of a new combustion metric for real-time characterization of the combustion process. Rapid feedback on the state of the combustion process is critical to high-speed decision making for predictive control. Simultaneous to the modeling/analysis studies, Delphi was focused on the development of engine hardware and the engine management system. This included custom Delphi hardware and control systems allowing for flexible control of the valvetrain sys-tem to enable HCCI operation. The final phase of this CRADA included the demonstration of conventional and spark assisted HCCI on the multi-cylinder engine as well as the characterization of combustioninstabilities, which govern the operational boundaries of this mode of combustion. ORNL and Delphi maintained strong collaboration throughout this project. Meetings were held on a bi-weekly basis with additional reports, presentation, and

An overview is presented of experimental methods for determining the combustion-stability properties of solid propellants. The methods are generally based on either the temporal response to an initial disturbance or on external methods for generating the required oscillations. The size distribution of condensed-phase combustion products are characterized by means of the experimental approaches. The 'T-burner' approach is shown to assist in the derivation of pressure-coupled driving contributions and particle damping in solid-propellant rocket motors. Other techniques examined include the rotating-valve apparatus, the impedance tube, the modulated throat-acoustic damping burner, and the magnetic flowmeter. The paper shows that experimental methods do not exist for measuring the interactions between acoustic velocity oscillations and burning propellant.

An acoustic source for generating an acoustic beam includes a housing; a plurality of spaced apart piezo-electric layers disposed within the housing; and a non-linear medium filling between the plurality of layers. Each of the plurality of piezoelectric layers is configured to generate an acoustic wave. The non-linear medium and the plurality of piezo-electric material layers have a matching impedance so as to enhance a transmission of the acoustic wave generated by each of plurality of layers through the remaining plurality of layers.

In a conventional formalism of acoustics, acoustic pressure p and velocity field u are used for characterizing acoustic waves propagating inside elastic/acoustic materials. We shall treat some fundamental problems relevant to acoustic wave propagation alternatively by using canonical acoustics (a more concise and compact formalism of acoustic dynamics), in which an acoustic scalar potential and an acoustic vector potential (Φ ,V), instead of the conventional acoustic field quantities such as acoustic pressure and velocity field (p,u) for characterizing acoustic waves, have been defined as the fundamental variables. The canonical formalism of the acoustic energy-momentum tensor is derived in terms of the acoustic potentials. Both the acoustic Hamiltonian density and the acoustic Lagrangian density have been defined, and based on this formulation, the acoustic wave quantization in a fluid is also developed. Such a formalism of acoustic potentials is employed to the problem of negative-mass-density assisted surface acoustic wave that is a highly localized surface bound state (an eigenstate of the acoustic wave equations). Since such a surface acoustic wave can be strongly confined to an interface between an acoustic metamaterial (e.g., fluid-solid composite structures with a negative dynamical mass density) and an ordinary material (with a positive mass density), it will give rise to an effect of acoustic field enhancement on the acoustic interface, and would have potential applications in acoustic device design for acoustic wave control.

... ANAUSA.org Connect with us! What is an Acoustic Neuroma? Each heading slides to reveal information. Important ... Acoustic Neuroma Important Points To Know About an Acoustic Neuroma An acoustic neuroma, also called a vestibular ...

NUMBER 33SP07KR 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NO. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFMC) AFRL...SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES Conference paper for the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program 2012 Users Group Conference, New Orleans, LA, 18-22 June...unlimited 1 during the rocket flight, many validation ground tests have to be performed during the design and the production of the engine. For

A plasma instability that strongly influences the efficiency and lifetime of electromagnetic plasma accelerators was quantitatively measured. Experimental measurements of dispersion relations (wave phase velocities), spatial growth rates, and stability boundaries are reported. The measured critical wave parameters are in excellent agreement with theoretical instability boundary predictions. The instability is current driven and affects a wide spectrum of longitudinal (electrostatic) oscillations. Current driven instabilities, which are intrinsic to the high-current-carrying magnetized plasma of the magnetoplasmadynmic (MPD) accelerator, were investigated with a kinetic theoretical model based on first principles. Analytical limits of the appropriate dispersion relation yield unstable ion acoustic waves for T(i)/T(e) much less than 1 and electron acoustic waves for T(i)/T(e) much greater than 1. The resulting set of nonlinear equations for the case of T(i)/T(e) = 1, of most interest to the MPD thruster Plasma Wave Experiment, was numerically solved to yield a multiparameter set of stability boundaries. Under certain conditions, marginally stable waves traveling almost perpendicular to the magnetic field would travel at a velocity equal to that of the electron current. Such waves were termed current waves. Unstable current waves near the upper stability boundary were observed experimentally and are in accordance with theoretical predictions. This provides unambiguous proof of the existence of such instabilites in electromagnetic plasma accelerators.

Hydrodynamic, or Landau, instability in combustion is typically associated with the onset of wrinkling of a flame surface, corresponding to the formation of steady cellular structures as the stability threshold is crossed. As its name suggests, it stems from hydrodynamic effects connected with thermal expansion across the reaction region. In the context of liquid-propellant combustion, the classical models that originally predicted this phenomenon have been extended to include the important effects that arise from a dynamic dependence of the burning rate on the local pressure and temperature fields. Thus, the onset of Landau instability has now been shown to occur for sufficiently small negative values of the pressure sensitivity of the burning rate, significantly generalizing previous classical results for this problem that assumed a constant normal burning rate. It has also been shown that the onset of instability occurs for decreasing values of the disturbance wave number as the gravitational-acceleration parameter decreases. Consequently, in an appropriate weak-gravity limit, Landau instability becomes a long-wave phenomena associated with the formation of large cells on the liquid-propellant surface. Additionally, a pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability has been shown to occur as well, corresponding to the onset of temporal oscillations in the location of the liquid/gas interface. This instability occurs for sufficiently large negative values of the pressure sensitivity, and is enhanced by increasing values of the burning-rate temperature sensitivity. It is further shown that for sufficiently small values of this parameter, there exists a stable range of pressure sensitivities for steady, planar burning such that the classical cellular form of hydrodynamic instability and the more recent pulsating form of hydrodynamic instability can each occur as the corresponding stability threshold is crossed. For larger thermal sensitivities, however, the pulsating

The Peach-Koehler expression for the stress generated by a single (non-planar) curvilinear dislocation is evaluated to calculate the dislocation self stress. This is combined with a law of motion to give the self-induced motion of a general dislocation curve. A stability analysis of a rectilinear, uniformly translating dislocation is then performed. The dislocation is found to be susceptible to a helical instability, with the maximum growth rate occurring when the dislocation is almost, but not exactly, pure screw. The non-linear evolution of the instability is determined numerically, and implications for slip band formation and non-Schmid behavior in yielding are discussed.

A combustion system including a plurality of axially staged tubular premixers to control emissions and minimize combustion noise. The combustion system includes a radial inflow premixer that delivers the combustion mixture across a contoured dome into the combustion chamber. The axially staged premixers having a twist mixing apparatus to rotate the fluid flow and cause improved mixing without causing flow recirculation that could lead to pre-ignition or flashback.

This report contains reports from research programs conducted at the Sandia Combustion Research Facility. Research is presented under the following topics: laser based diagnostics; combustion chemistry; reacting flow; combustion in engines and commercial burners; coal combustion; and industrial processing. Individual projects were processed separately for entry onto the DOE databases.

The UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has withdrawn funding for its acoustics, polymer and thermoelectrics groups, triggering concern among airborne acoustics specialists that the move could undermine the country's noise-management policies.

Recent studies have shown that micromachined silicon acoustic delay lines can provide a promising solution to achieve real-time photoacoustic tomography without the need for complex transducer arrays and data acquisition electronics. To achieve deeper imaging depth and wider field of view, a longer delay time and therefore delay length are required. However, as the length of the delay line increases, it becomes more vulnerable to structural instability due to reduced mechanical stiffness. In this paper, we report the design, fabrication, and testing of a new silicon acoustic delay line enhanced with 3D printed polymer micro linker structures. First, mechanical deformation of the silicon acoustic delay line (with and without linker structures) under gravity was simulated by using finite element method. Second, the acoustic crosstalk and acoustic attenuation caused by the polymer micro linker structures were evaluated with both numerical simulation and ultrasound transmission testing. The result shows that the use of the polymer micro linker structures significantly improves the structural stability of the silicon acoustic delay lines without creating additional acoustic attenuation and crosstalk. In addition, the improvement of the acoustic acceptance angle of the silicon acoustic delay lines was also investigated to better suppress the reception of unwanted ultrasound signals outside of the imaging plane. These two improvements are expected to provide an effective solution to eliminate current limitations on the achievable acoustic delay time and out-of-plane imaging resolution of micromachined silicon acoustic delay line arrays.

In acoustic emission nondestructive testing, broadband frequency noise is distinguished from narrow banded acoustic emission signals, since the latter are valid events indicative of structural flaws in the material being examined. This is accomplished by separating out those signals which contain frequency components both within and beyond (either above or below) the range of valid acoustic emission events. Application to acoustic emission monitoring during nondestructive bond verification and proof loading of undensified tiles on the Space Shuttle Orbiter is considered.

1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Shallow Water Acoustics Studies James F. Lynch MS #12...N00014-14-1-0040 http://acoustics.whoi.edu/sw06/ LONG TERM GOALS The long term goals of our shallow water acoustics work are to: 1) understand the...nature of low frequency (10-1500 Hz) acoustic propagation, scattering and noise in shallow water when strong oceanic variability is present in the

Lewis' High Speed Research (HSR) Propulsion Project Office initiated a targeted outreach effort to market combustion-related technologies developed at Lewis for the next generation of supersonic civil transport vehicles. These combustion-related innovations range from emissions measurement and reduction technologies, to diagnostics, spray technologies, NOx and SOx reduction of burners, noise reduction, sensors, and fuel-injection technologies. The Ohio Aerospace Institute and the Great Lakes Industrial Technology Center joined forces to assist Lewis' HSR Office in this outreach activity. From a database of thousands of nonaerospace firms considered likely to be interested in Lewis' combustion and emission-related technologies, the outreach team selected 41 companies to contact. The selected companies represent oil-gas refineries, vehicle/parts suppliers, and manufacturers of residential furnaces, power turbines, nonautomobile engines, and diesel internal combustion engines.

Fluidized-bed coal combustion process, in which pulverized coal and limestone are burned in presence of forced air, may lead to efficient, reliable boilers with low sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions.